Q 01/05

Petrified Forest National Park is in which U.S. state?

A) Arizona

B) New Mexico

C) Utah

D) Nevada

Answer · why

A) Arizona

It straddles Navajo and Apache counties, with the Navajo Nation on its northern border.

Q 02/05

The Painted Desert's name is translated from which Spanish phrase used by early explorers?

A) La Tierra Roja

B) El Valle de Colores

C) Las Piedras Brillantes

D) El Desierto Pintado

Answer · why

D) El Desierto Pintado

Oddly, the park's oldest Spanish inscriptions date only to the late 19th century, left by descendants of the colonists.

Q 03/05

The park is named for its large deposits of what?

A) Turquoise

B) Dinosaur eggs

C) Volcanic glass

D) Fossilised wood

Answer · why

D) Fossilised wood

The park covers about 346 square miles of shrub steppe and colourful eroded hills.

Q 04/05

What geographic term describes the park's colourful, deeply eroded and mostly bare hills?

A) Badlands

B) Moraines

C) Karst

D) Drumlins

Answer · why

A) Badlands

Swelling bentonite clay cracks the surface and keeps plants from taking hold, which leaves the slopes bare to erosion.

Q 05/05

The park's fossil trees lived during which geologic epoch, about 225 million years ago?

A) Late Jurassic

B) Late Triassic

C) Early Cretaceous

D) Late Permian

Answer · why

B) Late Triassic

At the time the region sat near the equator on the edge of the supercontinent Pangaea, humid and subtropical.