Sunday in Santa Rosa

We had two goals for Sunday.  One was to see the petrified forest and the second was to visit a winery.   After getting advice and researching the many wineries in the area, we decided to visit Castello di Amorosa in the Napa Valley.  One of the reasons we selected this winery was that we could visit the petrified forest on our way and not have to go in two different directions.While touring the petrified forest we were accompanied by Dan our guide and a den of Cub Scouts.  Our guide was from England and had his masters in educational ecology.  He was terrific and it was so much fun to watch the young boys, their leaders and the parents accompanying them interact.  Dan was very knowledgable and also very engaging.  I learned a great deal and saw things I had never before seen.  He shared information about plants and animals in addition to the petrified trees and the volcanic eruption that caused their formation.  These are spectacular examples of giant redwoods frozen in time. The process of petrification occurs because the trees were covered with tons of volcanic ash.  Then over time water seeped through and the cellular composition of the trees was replaced by primarily silica.  Other minerals such as iron oxide also infiltrated the cells, creating a substance that exactly resembles the plant cells, bark and even growth rings.  You might be wondering why did they cut this into segments. Well this is what happens during an earthquake.  Because the trunk can't bend when pressure is exerted, the weakest area breaks.  This happens repeatedly until the entire trunk is broken into segments.  

This truly amazed me.  This tree grew between two segments and over time has spread it apart by its process of growth. 

This tree is not fully uncovered and it is theorized that with the upper branches which were destroyed by the heat of the ash, it would be even larger by about 1/3.