To come we must penetrate the Sierra del Chorrillo, which comprises over 4 000 hectares. For its footpaths we can come across exotic animals threatened in the world, like the ankoles, very resistant to the drought, and the zebras that there have found a splendid home.

In the way to our target, we revise some interest information. A petrified forest is a type of fossil formed by wood in which the organic material was replaced by minerals like the quartz. The most extensive of the world is in the desert of Arizona, in the United States.

They have thousands of years like that; on the other hand, they were discovered not long ago. The father Pío Galtés called the attention on them in 1887. He did not discard the possibility of the waters and the fossilization inside the ground, with certain moisture and under the action of electric currents.

In 1921 the priest and naturalistic Modesto Roca considered to be causal the geysers influence; while the geologist Manuel Iturralde, in 1981, attributed the fossilization to a hurricane. A more recent research of the geophysical engineer Antonio Barroso says the petrifaction is due to the impact of warm water springs, and that for a sinuous river there could run waters loaded with silica and sand-clayish material.

In 2001, the Fossil Forest was catalogued like Out-standing Natural Element, but only bearing in mind La Caridad. The others were annexed later, because they found them during the evaluation of the area. Santa Rosa, which occupies 121 hectares, was declared National Monument in 2007.

Close to the Ranch La Belén we find evidences of the geologic evolution of the Earth, which has created sedimentary strata for centuries. These plants remains are preserved to the detail with its original structure in the fragments of stone trees of Najasa.

Translated by BA in English Language, Manuel Barrera Téllez

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