1.
The Petrified Forest
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The Petrified Forest is a 1936 American film, directed by Archie Mayo starring Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Humphrey Bogart. A precursor of film noir, it was adapted from Robert E. Sherwoods stage play of the same name, the screenplay was written by Delmer Daves and Charles Kenyon, and adaptations were later performed on radio and television as well. She now sends poetry to Gabrielle, who dreams of moving to Bourges, Alan tells his story—how he wrote one novel, then lived in France for eight years with his publishers wife, trying to write another—and Gabrielle is instantly smitten with him. Gabrielle shows Alan her paintings—the first time she has them to anyone—and reads him a favorite François Villon poem. Boze Hertzlinger, a beefy diner employee who has wooed Gabrielle in vain, grows jealous of Alan, Duke and his gang seize the Chisholms car and drive to the diner, where Duke has arranged to rendezvous with his girlfriend, Doris, on their way to Mexico. Alan, the Chisholms, and their chauffeur soon make their way back to the diner as well, Alan, indifferent to the hostage situation, engages Duke in lively conversation and toasts him as the last great apostle of rugged individualism. Boze snatches a rifle and gets the drop on Duke, but during a momentary distraction Duke draws his pistol and shoots Boze in the hand, Duke learns that Doris has been captured, and has revealed their rendezvous location to the police. As police and federal agents converge on the diner, Duke prepares to flee, announcing that he will take Mr. then he asks Duke to kill him, so that Gabrielle can use the insurance money to realize her dream of moving to France. Duke obliges, then leaves with his human shields, Alan dies in Gabrielles arms, secure in the knowledge that she, unlike the rest, will escape her dead-end existence to pursue her dreams. Bogart, who won the role in part because of his physical resemblance to Dillinger, studied film footage of the gangster. The film made Bogart a star, and he remained grateful to Howard for the rest of his life. In 1952, Bogart and Lauren Bacall named their daughter Leslie Howard Bogart in honor of Howard, in 1948, Robinson portrayed a character very similar to Duke—a famous gangster holding a disparate group of people hostage in a Florida hotel—in Key Largo. That films hero was played by Bogart, in his penultimate film, The Desperate Hours, Bogart played another gangster holding a suburban family hostage. He described that character as Duke Mantee grown up, another radio adaptation starring Joan Bennett, Tyrone Power, and Bogart aired on The Screen Guild Theater on January 7,1940. In 1955, a television version was performed as an installment of Producers Showcase, a weekly dramatic anthology, featuring Bogart as Mantee, Henry Fonda as Alan. Jack Klugman, Richard Jaeckel, and Jack Warden played supporting roles, in the late 1990s Bacall donated the only known kinescope of the 1955 performance to the Museum Of Television & Radio, where it remains archived for viewing in New York City and Los Angeles. In 1972, a take-off of the film entitled The Putrified Forest was seen as a sketch on The Carol Burnett Show, featuring Steve Lawrence, the Warner Brothers sound stage on which the movie was filmed is currently the home of Conan OBriens TBS television program. The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists,2003, AFIs 100 Years
2.
Triassic
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The Triassic is a geologic period and system which spans 50.9 million years from the end of the Permian Period 252.17 million years ago, to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.3 Mya. The Triassic is the first period of the Mesozoic Era, both the start and end of the period are marked by major extinction events. Therapsids and archosaurs were the terrestrial vertebrates during this time. A specialized subgroup of archosaurs, called dinosaurs, first appeared in the Late Triassic, the vast supercontinent of Pangaea existed until the mid-Triassic, after which it began to gradually rift into two separate landmasses, Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south. The global climate during the Triassic was mostly hot and dry, however, the climate shifted and became more humid as Pangaea began to drift apart. The end of the period was marked by yet another mass extinction, the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event. The Triassic is usually separated into Early, Middle, and Late Triassic Epochs, from the east, along the equator, the Tethys sea penetrated Pangaea, causing the Paleo-Tethys Ocean to be closed. Later in the mid-Triassic a similar sea penetrated along the equator from the west, the remaining shores were surrounded by the world-ocean known as Panthalassa. All the deep-ocean sediments laid down during the Triassic have disappeared through subduction of oceanic plates, thus, the supercontinent Pangaea was rifting during the Triassic—especially late in that period—but had not yet separated. In North America, for example, marine deposits are limited to a few exposures in the west, thus Triassic stratigraphy is mostly based on organisms that lived in lagoons and hypersaline environments, such as Estheria crustaceans. At the beginning of the Mesozoic Era, Africa was joined with Earths other continents in Pangaea, Africa shared the supercontinents relatively uniform fauna which was dominated by theropods, prosauropods and primitive ornithischians by the close of the Triassic period. Late Triassic fossils are found throughout Africa, but are common in the south than north. The time boundary separating the Permian and Triassic marks the advent of an event with global impact. At Paleorrota geopark, located in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in these formations, one of the earliest dinosaurs, Staurikosaurus, as well as the mammal ancestors Brasilitherium and Brasilodon have been discovered. The Triassic continental interior climate was hot and dry, so that typical deposits are red bed sandstones and evaporites. Pangaeas large size limited the effect of the global ocean, its continental climate was highly seasonal, with very hot summers. The strong contrast between the Pangea supercontinent and the global ocean triggered intense cross-equatorial monsoons, the best studied of such episodes of humid climate, and probably the most intense and widespread, was the Carnian Pluvial Event. On land, the vascular plants included the lycophytes, the dominant cycadophytes, ginkgophyta, ferns, horsetails
3.
Petrified Forest National Park
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Petrified Forest National Park is a United States national park in Navajo and Apache counties in northeastern Arizona. Named for its deposits of petrified wood, the fee area of the park covers about 230 square miles, encompassing semi-desert shrub steppe as well as highly eroded. The site, the part of which extends into the Painted Desert, was declared a national monument in 1906. The park received 643,274 recreational visitors in 2016, representing a decrease of 19% from the prior year, typical visitor activities include sightseeing, photography, hiking, and backpacking. Averaging about 5,400 feet in elevation, the park has a dry climate with temperatures that vary from summer highs of about 100 °F to winter lows well below freezing. More than 400 species of plants, dominated by such as bunchgrass, blue grama. About half of the park is designated wilderness, the Petrified Forest is known for its fossils, especially fallen trees that lived in the Late Triassic Period, about 225 million years ago. The sediments containing the logs are part of the widespread and colorful Chinle Formation. Beginning about 60 million years ago, the Colorado Plateau, of which the park is part, was pushed upward by tectonic forces and exposed to increased erosion. All of the rock layers above the Chinle, except geologically recent ones found in parts of the park, have been removed by wind. Paleontologists have been unearthing and studying the parks fossils since the early 20th century, the parks earliest human inhabitants arrived at least 8,000 years ago. By about 2,000 years ago, they were growing corn in the area, later inhabitants built above-ground dwellings called pueblos. Although a changing climate caused the last of the parks pueblos to be abandoned by about 1400 CE, more than 600 archeological sites, including petroglyphs, have been discovered in the park. Later, roads and a railway followed similar routes and gave rise to tourism and, before the park was protected, theft of petrified wood remains a problem in the 21st century. Petrified Forest National Park straddles the border between Apache County and Navajo County in northeastern Arizona, I-40, former U. S. Route 66, the BNSF Railway, and the Puerco River bisect the park generally east–west along a similar route. Adamana, a ghost town, is about 1 mile west of the park along the BNSF tracks, Holbrook, about 26 miles west of park headquarters along I-40, is the nearest city. Bisecting the park north–south is Park Road, which runs between I-40 near park headquarters on the north and U. S. Route 180 on the south, Historic Highway 180, an earlier alignment of the modern route, crosses the southern edge of the park. Like Route 66, it has deteriorated and is closed, many unpaved maintenance roads, closed to the public, intersect Park Road at various points
4.
Acacia
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Acacia, commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs, lianas and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australia, controversy erupted in the early 2000s when it became evident that the genus as it stood was not monophyletic, and that several divergent lineages needed to be placed in separate genera. It turned out that one lineage comprising over 900 species mainly native to Australia was not closely related to the mainly African lineage that contained A. nilotica—the first and this meant that the Australian lineage would need to be renamed. Botanist Les Pedley named this group Racosperma, which was inconsistently adopted and this was officially adopted, but many botanists from Africa and elsewhere disagreed that this was necessary. A number of species have been introduced to parts of the world. The heterogeneous group varies considerably in habit, from mat-like subshrubs to canopy trees in forest, the genus was first described from Africa by C. F. P. von Martius in 1829. Several hundred combinations in Acacia were published by Pedley in 2003, the genus of 981 species, Acacia s. l. in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae is monophyletic. All but 10 of its species are native to Australia, where it constitutes the largest plant genus, following a controversial decision to choose a new type for Acacia in 2005, the Australian component of Acacia s. l. now retains the name Acacia. At the 2011 International Botanical Congress held in Melbourne, the decision to use the name Acacia, other Acacia s. l. taxa continue to be called Acacia by those who choose to consider the entire group as one genus. Australian species of the genus Paraserianthes s. l. are deemed its closest relatives, the origin of wattle may be an Old Teutonic word meaning to weave. From around 700 A. D. watul was used in Old English to refer to the branches and sticks which formed fences, walls. Since about 1810 it refers to the Australian legumes that provide these branches, acacias in Australia probably evolved their fire resistance about 20 million years ago when fossilised charcoal deposits show a large increase, indicating that fire was a factor even then. With no major mountain ranges or rivers to prevent their spread and they began to form dry, open forests with species of the genera Casuarina, Eucalyptus and Callitris. The southernmost species in the genus are Acacia dealbata, Acacia longifolia, Acacia mearnsii and they are present in all terrestrial habitats, including alpine settings, rainforests, woodlands, grasslands, coastal dunes and deserts. In drier woodlands or forest they are an important component of the understory, elsewhere they may be dominant, as in the Brigalow Belt, Myall woodlands and the eremaean Mulga woodlands. Several of its species bear vertically oriented phyllodes, which are green, broadened leaf petioles that function like leaf blades, some phyllodinous species have a colourful aril on the seed. A few species have rather than leaves. Aborigines of Australia have traditionally harvested the seeds of species, to be ground into flour
5.
Welwitschia
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Welwitschia is a monotypic gymnosperm genus, comprising solely the distinctive Welwitschia mirabilis. The plant is known simply as welwitschia in English. It is called kharos or khurub in Nama, tweeblaarkanniedood in Afrikaans, nyanka in Damara, Welwitschia is the only living genus of the family Welwitschiaceae and order Welwitschiales, in the division Gnetophyta. Informal sources commonly refer to the plant as a living fossil, Welwitschia mirabilis is endemic to the Namib desert within Namibia and Angola. Welwitschia is named after the Austrian botanist and doctor Friedrich Welwitsch, Welwitsch was so overwhelmed by the plant that he, could do nothing but kneel down and gaze at it, half in fear lest a touch should prove it a figment of the imagination. Welwitsch proposed calling the genus Tumboa after what he believed to be the local name, Hooker asked Welwitsch for permission to name the genus Welwitschia instead. Welwitsch concurred and supplied some well-preserved material from which Hooker was able to make progress in determining its botanical affinities. The taxonomy of Welwitschia subsequently changed intermittently with the development of new systems, however. Most botanists have treated Welwitschia as a monotypic genus in a monotypic family or even order. Most recent systems place Welwitschia mirabilis in its own family Welwitschiaceae in the gymnosperm order Gnetales, after germination, the seedling produces two cotyledons which grow to 25–35 mm in length, and possess reticulate venation. Subsequently, two leaves are produced at the edge of a woody bilobed crown. The permanent leaves are opposite, amphistomatic, parallel-veined and ribbon-shaped, shortly after the appearance of the foliage leaves, the apical meristem dies and meristematic activity is transferred to the periphery of the crown. The two foliage leaves consequently grow continuously from a basal meristem reaching lengths up to 4 m, the largest specimens may be no more than 1.5 m tall above ground, but the circumference of the leaves at contact with the sand may exceed 8 m. The roots extend to a roughly equal to the span of the living leaves from tip to tip. The main stem consists of an unbranched woody crown roughly shaped like an inverted cone, the only branching in the shoot system occurs in the reproductive branches, which bear strobili. The species is dioecious, with male and female plants. Fertilization is carried out by insects, the insects responsible include flies and true bugs. The commonest of the true bugs attending Welwitschia is a member of the family Pyrrhocoridae, the genus is also known as Probergrothius and the matter of which name is correct is still under discussion
6.
Namibia
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Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south, although it does not border Zimbabwe, a part of less than 200 metres of the Zambezi River separates the two countries. Namibia gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek, and it is a state of the United Nations, the Southern African Development Community, the African Union. The dry lands of Namibia were inhabited since early times by the San, Damara, since about the 14th century, immigrating Bantu peoples arrived as part of the Bantu expansion. Since then the Bantu groups in total, known as the Ovambo people, have dominated the population of the country, in the late 19th century during European colonization, the German Empire established rule over most of the territory as a protectorate in 1884. It began to develop infrastructure and farming, and maintained this German colony until 1915, after the end of World War I, in 1920 the League of Nations mandated the country to the United Kingdom, under administration by South Africa. It imposed its laws, including racial classifications and rules, from 1948, with the National Party elected to power, South Africa applied apartheid also to what was known as South West Africa. In 1878 the Cape of Good Hope had annexed the port of Walvis Bay and the offshore Penguin Islands, following continued guerrilla warfare, South Africa installed an interim administration in Namibia in 1985. Namibia obtained full independence from South Africa in 1990, but Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands remained under South African control until 1994. Namibia has a population of 2.1 million people and a stable multi-party parliamentary democracy, Agriculture, herding, tourism and the mining industry – including mining for gem diamonds, uranium, gold, silver, and base metals – form the basis of its economy. The large, arid Namib Desert has resulted in Namibia being overall one of the least densely populated countries in the world, Namibia enjoys high political, economic and social stability. The name of the country is derived from the Namib Desert, before its independence in 1990, the area was known first as German South-West Africa, then as South-West Africa, reflecting the colonial occupation by the Germans and the South Africans. The dry lands of Namibia were inhabited since early times by San, Damara, from about the 14th century, immigrating Bantu peoples arrived during the Bantu expansion from central Africa. From the late 18th century onwards, Oorlam people from Cape Colony crossed the Orange River and their encounters with the nomadic Nama tribes were largely peaceful. The missionaries accompanying the Oorlam were well received by them, the right to use waterholes, on their way further northwards, however, the Oorlam encountered clans of the Herero at Windhoek, Gobabis, and Okahandja, who resisted their encroachment. The Nama-Herero War broke out in 1880, with hostilities ebbing only after the German Empire deployed troops to the places and cemented the status quo among the Nama, Oorlam. The first Europeans to disembark and explore the region were the Portuguese navigators Diogo Cão in 1485 and Bartolomeu Dias in 1486, like most of interior Sub-Saharan Africa, Namibia was not extensively explored by Europeans until the 19th century
7.
Petrified forest, Khorixas
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The Petrified forest, located some 40 kilometres west of the Namibian town of Khorixas, on the C39 road, is a deposit of large tree trunks that have turned to stone through a process of diagenesis. There are at least two large tree trunks exposed to view and more may be out of sight, the site was declared a National Monument on 1 March 1950. It is believed that the trees were swept downstream by a large flood, the surrounding sands became sandstone, which is now eroding away. In addition, there are a number of welwitschia plants at the site. Public access is by guided tour only, there are toilet and refreshment facilities
8.
Fossil
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Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous rock formations and sedimentary layers is known as the fossil record. The study of fossils across geological time, how they were formed, such a preserved specimen is called a fossil if it is older than some minimum age, most often the arbitrary date of 10,000 years. The observation that fossils were associated with certain rock strata led early geologists to recognize a geological timescale in the 19th century. The development of dating techniques in the early 20th century allowed geologists to determine the numerical or absolute age of the various strata. Like extant organisms, fossils vary in size from microscopic, even single bacterial cells one micrometer in diameter, to gigantic, such as dinosaurs, Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as animal tracks or feces. These types of fossil are called trace fossils, as opposed to body fossils, finally, past life leaves some markers that cannot be seen but can be detected in the form of biochemical signals, these are known as chemofossils or biosignatures. The process of fossilization varies according to type and external conditions. Permineralization is a process of fossilization that occurs when an organism is buried, the empty spaces within an organism become filled with mineral-rich groundwater. Minerals precipitate from the groundwater, occupying the empty spaces and this process can occur in very small spaces, such as within the cell wall of a plant cell. Small scale permineralization can produce very detailed fossils, for permineralization to occur, the organism must become covered by sediment soon after death or soon after the initial decay process. The degree to which the remains are decayed when covered determines the later details of the fossil, some fossils consist only of skeletal remains or teeth, other fossils contain traces of skin, feathers or even soft tissues. This is a form of diagenesis, in some cases the original remains of the organism completely dissolve or are otherwise destroyed. The remaining organism-shaped hole in the rock is called an external mold, if this hole is later filled with other minerals, it is a cast. An endocast or internal mold is formed when sediments or minerals fill the cavity of an organism. This is a form of cast and mold formation. If the chemistry is right, the organism can act as a nucleus for the precipitation of minerals such as siderite, if this happens rapidly before significant decay to the organic tissue, very fine three-dimensional morphological detail can be preserved. Nodules from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek fossil beds of Illinois, USA, are among the best documented examples of such mineralization, replacement occurs when the shell, bone or other tissue is replaced with another mineral
9.
Terrestrial plant
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A terrestrial plant is a plant that grows on or in or from land. Other types of plants are aquatic, epiphytic and lithophytic, there are relatively few obligate submersed aquatic plants, but some examples include members of Hydrocharitaceae and Cabombaceae, Ceratophyllum, and Aldrovanda and most macroalgae. Most aquatic plants can, or prefer to, grow in the emersed form, many terrestrial plants can tolerate extended periods of inundation, and this is often part of the natural habitat of the plant where flooding is common. These plants tolerate extended periods of waterlogging around the roots and even complete submersion under flood waters, growth rates of helophytes decrease significantly during these periods of complete submersion and if water levels do not recede the plant will ultimately decline and perish. An epiphyte is a plant that grows non-parasitically upon another plant
10.
Tree
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In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, supporting branches and leaves in most species. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are usable as lumber or plants above a specified height. Trees are not a group but include a variety of plant species that have independently evolved a woody trunk. In looser senses, the palms, the tree ferns, bananas. Trees tend to be long-lived, some reaching several thousand years old, the tallest known tree, a coast redwood named Hyperion, stands 115.6 m high. Trees have been in existence for 370 million years and it is estimated that there are just over 3 trillion mature trees in the world. A tree typically has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground by the trunk and this trunk typically contains woody tissue for strength, and vascular tissue to carry materials from one part of the tree to another. For most trees it is surrounded by a layer of bark which serves as a protective barrier, below the ground, the roots branch and spread out widely, they serve to anchor the tree and extract moisture and nutrients from the soil. Above ground, the divide into smaller branches and shoots. The shoots typically bear leaves, which light energy and convert it into sugars by photosynthesis, providing the food for the trees growth. Flowers and fruit may also be present, but some trees, such as conifers, instead have pollen cones and seed cones, others, such as tree ferns, trees play a significant role in reducing erosion and moderating the climate. They remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store large quantities of carbon in their tissues, trees and forests provide a habitat for many species of animals and plants. Tropical rainforests are one of the most biodiverse habitats in the world, trees provide shade and shelter, timber for construction, fuel for cooking and heating, and fruit for food as well as having many other uses. In parts of the world, forests are shrinking as trees are cleared to increase the amount of available for agriculture. Because of their longevity and usefulness, trees have always revered, with sacred groves in various cultures. Although tree is a term of common parlance, there is no universally recognised precise definition of what a tree is, either botanically or in common language. In its broadest sense, a tree is any plant with the form of an elongated stem, or trunk. Trees are also defined by height, with smaller plants from 0.5 to 10 m being called shrubs
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