Wyoming Has A Blue Forest? — What?

A blue forest? Whoever heard of such a thing?

If you go now to the Blue Forest, you won't find a single living tree. But there was once a forest there.

I've heard of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, but that's because of the bluegrass that grows up there.

If you’re ever in Wyoming, put the Blue Forest on your list of stops…

The "Blue Forest" in Wyoming is a petrified wood collecting area in Sweetwater County, southwest of the town of Farson.

It is known for its Blue Forest petrified wood, which is encased in a distinctive blue-colored chalcedony.

This formation resulted from ancient trees and their branches being coated by thick layers of algae in the shallow waters of the ancient Lake Gosiute.

As the lake dried, silica-rich groundwater seeped in and replaced the wood and algae casings with minerals, forming the fossilized wood with unique blue colors.

To see Wyoming's blue forest, you have to head to the Green River Basin.

Lots of colors in this story.

That is in southwest Wyoming, the Uinta Basin in northeast Utah, and the Sand Wash Basin in northwest Colorado.

Wyoming’s Lake Gosiute was a large crocodile-infested water body in a closed basin.

Lake Gosiute, located in the Greater Green River Basin, was bounded by the Laramide mountains of the Wind River Range and Granite Mountains to the north, the Sierra Madre to the southeast, the Uinta Mountains to the south, and the Sevier mountains of the Wyoming Range on the west.

You might be wondering what caused this forest to turn blue.

Turn the clock back to an ancient lake surrounded by sycamore and palms.

Many species of mammals lived in the niches vacated by the extinct dinosaur.

When the lake flooded the forest during high water stages, branches, limbs, and trees fell into the water, where they became encrusted with algae.

Volcanoes were active back then.

Ash rained down on the region from the Absaroka and San Juan volcanic fields.

Over time, the wood was preserved in the lake sediment layers.

The collecting area west of Eden Valley is known as the Blue Forest for the blue calcedony found in the area's fossilized wood specimens.