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Petrified plants and fossils at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Colorado

A beautiful mountain valley just west of Pikes Peak holds spectacular remnants of the earth's prehistoric life. Huge petrified redwoods and incredibly detailed fossils of ancient insects and plants reveal a very different Colorado of long ago. Almost 35 million years ago, enormous volcanic eruptions buried the then-lush valley and petrified the redwood trees that grew there. A lake formed in the valley and the fine-grained sediments at its bottom became the final resting-place for thousands of insects and plants. These sediments compacted into layers of shale and preserved the delicate details of these organisms as fossils. The Florissant Fossil Beds are world-renowned, and in 1969 were set aside as a part of our National Park System; Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument.

Petrified sequoia tree stumps

National Park Service

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Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Code: FLFO

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, Teller County, Colorado
Latitude: 38.9126014709473, Longitude: -105.279998779297

Legacy NPS Focus Record ID : 231528

NPS Office of Communications and Public Affairs Photo Library

Title: NPS Office of Communications and Public Affairs Photo Library
URL: http://www.nps.gov/pub_aff/imagebase.html

01/13/2003

01/01/1980 - 12/30/1999

Digital image (TIF ; 18.0 MB; 3072 x 2048 ; 300 dpi; 24 bit color). Encoded as MrSID format

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NPS staff

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

Administrator

Wednesday, September 29, 2004 6:26:10 PM

Thursday, August 10, 2017 11:27:33 AM

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Monday, January 1, 0001 12:00:00 AM

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