During the Triassic period, over 200 million years ago, the
landmass which is now Arizona was located in the Tropics, near the
equator, and was densely forested. This beautiful, highly polished
slice of fossilised wood comes from a tree called
Araucarioxylon arizonicum, a conifer tree. Now extinct,
these trees once grew over 60 metres high.
This beautiful, highly polished fossil originates from the
Arizona Petrified Forest National Park in the USA. The park became
a National Monument in 1906, thanks to the campaigning work of the
Scottish-born naturalist John Muir, and a National Park in
1962.
Who was John Muir?
John Muir was born in Dunbar, East Lothian in 1838. When he was
11, his family emigrated to America, settling in Milwaukee, then
still very much a frontier town. His father, Daniel Muir, was a
stern and zealous preacher, and John was raised on daily Bible
study, forbidden to read anything without practical or religious
merit. But this didn’t stop him avidly consuming any written
material he could lay hands on, and in 1861 he was admitted to the
recently founded University of Wisconsin.
Here he was introduced to science, and to the value-centred
views of nature in the writings of William Wordsworth, Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, which would shape his passionate
love of nature for life.
From 1869-1873, Muir settled in the scenically stunning Yosemite
valley, which he explored thoroughly on foot. Finding everywhere
traces of the huge but now vanished glaciers that he believed had
carved the valley from granite, Muir began to disseminate his
geological views, which directly contradicted previously existing
theories about the formation of the area.
Geologist and botanist, author and diarist, mountaineer and
explorer, Muir was also a groundbreaking conservationist, whose
work has inspired and informed the modern ecological movement. As a
result of his tireless campaigning, Yosemite, Sequoia, Kings
Canyon, Mount Rainier, Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest were
eventually established, and the idea of national parks spread
worldwide. Thanks to Muir, these rich, wild landscapes have been
preserved for future generations.
Where will the fossil be displayed?
The tree fossil is on display in the Discoveries gallery, as part of a celebration of
the life of John Muir. You’ll be able to look closely at the tree
rings, and even touch this remnant of an ancient, lost world.
This fossil was collected before the Petrified Forest became a
national park. Fossil collecting is now illegal on federal land,
and thieves face a fine and possible imprisonment.