Arizona petrified wood was named Arizona's state fossil, a tribute to Petrified Forest National Park. . . . Petrified wood links the Age of Dinosaurs to the present. It dates to about the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. Lousiana and Texas adopted petrified palmwood, a reminder that the Gulf of Mexico was once further north than it is today. The prehistoric whales that were adopted by Alabama and Mississippi lived and became extinct before Washington State's famous Ginkgo Forest flourished.
Petrified wood is Washington's official state gem.
Even younger state fossils rubbed elbows with ancient peoples. These include Alaska's woolly mammoth and California's saber-toothed cat. It's the beluga whale, which swam in Vermont's Lake Champlain when it was an Ice Age sea. . . . Idaho's state fossil, the Hagerman Horse, nicely complements its state horse, the Appaloosa. Fortunately, Spanish explorers brought horses back to the New World.