I drove to Sprague, WA, last weekend to visit my family and took some pictures along the way.
I stopped for a leg stretch at the Ginko Petrified Forest State Park. The park was established back in the 1930’s when petrified wood was discovered by workers building the Vantage bridge. As you walk the trail you find stone enclosures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps housing the petrified logs. The petrified wood is what remains of water saturated logs that were at the bottome of a lake during the Ginko Lava Flow. The lava coverered the logs, but could not burn them, and so over time the minerals in the surrounding lava replaced the organic matter, leaving behind logs of stone.
As I was trying to count the rings on one of the logs the thought struck me that the enclosure was probably made from stones picked up off the ground near the log, which means they were probably part of the Ginko Flow. That means the stones surrounding the log are actually younger than the log itself. I don’t know why that stuck me as such an odd thought, that stone could be younger than wood, even petrified wood, but it flipped the illusion of permanence on it’s head for a moment.
And here, I am. 