Sarmiento Petrified Forest

The petrified forest at Sarmiento sits in a landscape of eroded clay hills banded in grey, red and violet, an arid badland that was once a warm, wet forest. Volcanic ash buried the fallen trees, silica replaced the wood cell by cell, and erosion has since stripped the sediment away, leaving trunks lying where they fell, some more than a metre thick and many metres long, split into sections and hard as rock with the grain and bark still legible. A marked trail loops through the site from a small interpretation centre, passing the largest trunks and viewpoints over the coloured hills. Fossils here date to roughly sixty-five million years ago, and removing any material is prohibited.

What you actually see

• The stone trunks - large petrified logs lying in the open badlands.
• The coloured hills - grey, red and violet clay banding across the site.
• The interpretation trail - the marked loop past the main specimens.
• The preserved detail - bark and grain visible in the silicified wood.

When to go

September to April for tolerable temperatures; midsummer is very hot with no shade at all. Wind is constant and can be strong enough to make walking unpleasant. Low sun in the morning or evening brings out the colours of the badlands.

Honest expectations

The site is small and the trail short, an hour or two at most. Access is by gravel road and there is no public transport. Facilities amount to a small centre and toilets. Taking even a fragment of petrified wood is illegal and enforced.

Nearby

Sarmiento and its lakes lie north; Comodoro Rivadavia is on the coast to the east.