The Painted Desert is a desert of badlands in the United States, located in the Four Corners area. The desert is composed of stratified layers of easily erodible mudstone, siltstone, and shale of the Triassic Chinle Formation. It runs from near the eastern end of Grand Canyon National Park and extends up to the southeastern part of the Petrified Forest National Park. Tourists can easily access the Painted Desert from the northern part of Petrified Forest National Park. The desert is celebrated for its vivid and diverse colors, which not only contain the more common red rock, but also the hues of lavender.
The Petrified Forest is known for its fossils, particularly fallen trees from the Late Triassic Epoch, approximately 225 million years ago. The forest consists of Late Triassic ferns, ginkgoes, cycads, and numerous other plants and animals, including giant reptiles known as phytosaurs, large amphibians, and early dinosaurs. Paleontologists have been excavating and studying the fossils of the Petrified Forest National Park since the early twentieth century. Visitors to the forest can enjoy seeing large animals and small fauna, such as mice, deer, snakes, seven species of amphibians, lizards, and more than 200 bird species.
