Ancient amphibian comes to life in horrific detail when eyes uncovered by Arizona lab Mark Price, The Charlotte Observer
Jan. 15 The well-preserved head of a giant Triassic Period amphibian came to life in horrific detail, when experts in an Arizona lab peeled away debris to find its mouth, nose and empty eye sockets.
Scarier still, the fossil skull has a texture resembling leathery skin. The eye sockets, or orbits, of this metoposaur skull were recently uncovered and suddenly the past was staring right back at us! Petrified Forest National Park wrote on Facebook.
A photo shared by the park shows the fossil looking frighteningly like a dehydrated alligator, right down to the scales.
4x4 tour with local Navajo guide (Monument Valley)
White House Trail hike (Canyon de Chelly)
Petrified Forest National Park visit
Grand Canyon visit with sunset at the rim
All transport between destinations and to/from included activities
Highlights
Marvel at the petroglyphs of petrified forest national park
Visit horseshoe bend and admire the capabilities of the colorado river
Enjoy free time at the grand canyon and witness its splendour at sunset
Itinerary
Day 1: Las Vegas/Zion National ParkWelcome to Las Vegas. Meet your fellow travellers and CEO first thing in the morning for a briefing before hitting the road. Travel to Zion, Utah s oldest national park. Explore towering cliffs and massive canyon walls, and opt to hike diverse and exciting trails.
Credit Courtesy of Shannon Rhodes
“Charlie climbed onto the bed and tried to calm the three old people who were still petrified with fear. ‘Please don t be frightened,’ he said. ‘It s quite safe. And we re going to the most wonderful place in the world!’
Author Roald Dahl uses the word petrified as being motionless, stonelike, frightfully frozen, as he describes Charlie Bucket’s puzzled grandparents and his own excitement about a trip to Mr. Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
Utah’s San Rafael Swell rates as one of the most wonderful places in my world, and not because of an abundance of chocolate or gleeful oompa loompas. Beneath the towering spires on my bucket list-quest to see desert bighorn sheep in the wild, I’ve wandered among the petrified wood fragments scattered in the desert sand, so many that I almost forget to appreciate them for what they are.
Researchers at Petrified Forest discover fossil of a reptile with claws and a beak tucsonlocalmedia.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from tucsonlocalmedia.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
When Bruce Byers brought home a piece of petrified wood he inherited after his father died in 2012, he didn’t plan to make it the subject of a new area of research. His father had collected the hunk of rock in Bears Ears, Utah, in the 1980s and had long used it as a doorstop. But with the 210-million-year-old fossil newly situated in his home, something niggled at Byers. The ancient log looked to him like it had a fire scar (
below, on right), a wood growth formation that happens at the base of a tree in response to a low-intensity ground fire. A patch of live tissue under the bark is killed, and the tree grows scar tissue curled around the wound in response. Byers recalls, “I thought, ‘This is interesting. I’ve never heard of a fossil fire scar.’”