Welwitschia mirabilis in the natural habitat Namibia Namib
The Petrified Forest is a geological site situated about 50 km west of Khorixas. A large number of petrified trees lie on a bed of sandstone. Some are partially buried, while others lie completely exposed because the sandstone surrounding them has eroded away. It is thought that they were carried here as logs by a river, some 250 million years ago, and became stranded on a sandbank. Subsequently sand was deposited around them, creating ideal conditions for the cells of the wood to be replaced by silica, and thus become petrified. The 'forest' covers an area of about 800m by 300m and lies in the Aba Huab River Valley. There are at least 50 trees, some still only partly exposed. Formation The fact that trunks do not have any branches or roots suggest that these trees grew somewhere else and were carried to their present location by rivers or floods. The trunks were deposited in a silica rich environment and were excluded from contact with oxygen, which prevented decay. During the course of time molecules of silica penetrated the wood and replaced wood molecules. At present around 50 trunks can be seen on the site with the longest being more than 30 meters long. National Monument The site was declared a national monument in 1950 but suffered the same damaging attacks of souvenir hunters. It is now strictly prohibited to remove or damage even small pieces of petrified wood!
Size: 5400px × 3313px
Photo credit: © Petr Bonek / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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