— When we first arrived at Petrified Forest National Park, it was getting late in the afternoon. It was our lucky time to drive around the park and see the Painted Desert under the setting sun. The colors were more vibrant and memorable. We could see a wide range of orange and red, as well as some purple and brown hues. Those hues are a result of stratified layers of siltstone, mudstone, and shale of the Triassic Chinle Formation. The name Painted Desert originated in the 16th century, when Francisco Vázquez de Coronado was leading an expedition in that area and saw the colorful formations, such as the one in this photo.
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