How does wood turn to stone? Petrified wood forms after a tree trunk becomes covered by wet mud composed of fine sediments or volcanic ash. Water keeps the wood from decaying quickly, and the mud provides silica that gradually replaces the wood’s cells with quartz, opal, or chalcedony (all are forms of silica). Sometimes this happens so slowly that the tree’s rings and cells are preserved. Some petrified wood can be very colorful because iron and manganese impurities can tint the silica red, yel

Petrified wood at Rainbow Forest is particularly colorful in Petrified Forest National Park, AZ. That's why this area is named Rainbow Forest. | See America's Best

The Petrified Forest National Park has petrified wood over 200 million years old. #petrifiedwood #nationalparks #Arizona | Business Insider