What is a stony forest?

As its name suggests, stone forests are made up of huge cylindrical and pyramidal stones thatonce were the trunks of gigantic trees. The metamorphosis was not the work of Medusa, the mythological monster whose gaze turned people to stone, but the product offossilization process. Basically, this begins with the death of the organism and the decomposition of the soft parts. The hard organic compounds are then slowly replaced by other inorganics from the environment, such as calcite, silica, pyrite, calcium phosphate, and carbon. The exchange is so precise that the primitive forms are often preserved; in the case of trees, you can even see the growth rings on their petrified stumps.

The genesis of archaic forests began millions of years ago in the primary era, specifically during the Carboniferous, a period in which a large part of the Earth was populated by large forests. When atree mass was buried in the mud, for example, after a flood, a sandstorm or a rain ofvolcanic ash, anaerobic conditions occurred, that is,without oxygen, and pressure for fossilization. The organic components of the vegetable, such as lignin and cellulose, were replaced by carbon and minerals from the water that filtered through the sediments.

There are stone forests all over the planet: Argentine Patagonia, Axel Heiberg Island (Canada), Chennai (India), the Catlins coast (New Zealand) … The United States has several; the main ones, in Utah, Arizona and Washington. However, the largest is on the Greek island of Lesbos, with an area of 150 km and trunks 22 meters high.

 

The best photos of the erupting Etna volcano