Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

The 5,998-acre Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument was authorized in 1969 to preserve ancient fossilized plants and insects in beds of shale located 35 miles west of Colorado Springs, Colorado. The petrified stumps of giant sequoia trees, 30 million years old and more than 10 feet in diameter, can be seen along one of the self-guiding trails. These and other plants were preserved in beds of sediment deposited in Lake Florissant, a shallow body of water that filled this valley from about 36 to 26 million years ago, a period of geologic time known as the Oligocene Epoch.