The magnificently colored Painted Desert Member of the Petrified Forest Formation rests unconformably on the Sonsela Sandstone. It is composed of a series of grayish red, brown, and reddish purple mudstone, siltstone and sandy siltstone beds with some very large scale crossbeds. The beds are flat and lenticular and generally are more than 50 feet thick, and more than a quarter of a mile long.
Some beds show low to very low angle very large scale crossbeds.
The units in the painted Desert member are more flat bedded, can be traced farther laterally, and have fewer well-defined channels than units in the Blue Mesa member. In some areas it is over 1000 feet thick, but typically 500 feet thick over most areas. TheThe majority of this unit lies on the north end of the Petrified Forest, and outcrops over a large area north to the border. All of these shots were taken on the Park loop north of I40. The rose colored bentonites are capped with the basalt portion of the Tertiary Biddahochi formation.