The petrified forest in Arizona. An entire ancient petrified forest with evidence of it lying all around and cover a vast area. I have looked at it before online, but hadn’t previously noticed the shape of it until scanning from above quite a way around one area. A dark area that looked funnily, like the outline of a tree stump but huge. Giving rise to more thoughts towards the talk of old times, of fantastical times when things were much bigger and maybe a bit more magical. Giant trees come up now and again online, and Devils Tower is put forward as one as discussed in A Giant Debate.

But as with lots of things, there are Stone Cold Mysteries out there. And using our eyes is a big part of how we look to solve things. Nobody seemed to have a problem with Sherlock Holmes seeing patterns and linking things together to solve a puzzle or crime. But when it comes to other people, it gets asked whether we see Patterns or Pareidolia?

It’s not just forests though that have apparently been discovered as being petrified. There is also talk of a petrified city in Africa, although not substantiated by much else apart from this article snippet from the 1800’s –

And while there is much under the surface and taken by time and the landscape, it seems there is still a fair amount to see and wonder about on the surface. With what appears to be evidence all over the world of quite cataclysmic events occurring here and there over time. Those events can also bring about new discoveries, as just our ‘normal’ weather can with constant rock falls along the Jurassic coast revealing fossils and a previous era, it does the same for other things hidden. Earthquakes, storms and hurricanes, excessive water flow and anything else that gets thrown at the land and what we have built on it, either survives the onslaught, or it changes everything around it, as we have seen with the recent terrible aftermath of storm Helene in North Carolina and other states. Recent history gets buried and covered, the current time is changed, and a new landscape is carved almost in an instant with rivers finding a new path temporarily and taking everything with it, lives, homes, trees, wildlife and even the land itself gets swept away. We are an industrious species and can overcome many things, even having to constantly contend with our own kind trying to derail and hamper things, but when it comes to nature sometimes the only thing you can do, is try your best to get out of its way…

(c) K Wicks