In Laconia in southern Greece, lies a rich geological museum of a petrified forest that dates back to between two or three million years ago.
In a large seaside area that extends from Agios Nikolaos, Agia Marina, Spitha, and Voies lie a little-known geopark.
Palm trees, conifers, and hardwood trunks ranging from 0.50 cm (.2 inches) to 1 meter 3.2 feet) in diameter were petrified due to various natural phenomena and then recalcified by the rise of the sea level.
The findings, unique in Europe, are priceless for scientific study.
The petrified palm forest in Greece
The uniqueness of the fossil forest, however, lies in the way all those trees were petrified: In contrast with other fossil forests around Greece, they weren’t pyritized, or mummified because of volcanic eruptions but fossilized through a different process, namely permineralization.