Protecting Stone Heritage in the Painted Desert: Employing the Rock Art Stability Index in the Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

Abstract

Located in northeastern Arizona (USA), Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO) presents a unique story of both geologic and human history. Though perhaps most well-known for its abundant petrified wood and being part of the Painted Desert, visitors are often surprised when they discover PEFO hosts many ancient petroglyph sites. Over the years, many attempts have been made to record the petroglyph sites, but nothing has been done to assess their geomorphic stability. To address this shortcoming, we employed the Rock Art Stability Index (RASI) to assess geologic stability and (potential) deterioration of rock art sites in PEFO. Used for more than a decade as a triage for researchers assessing which rock art panels/sites are in the most danger of eroding, RASI uses a rank-based system to assess over three-dozen rock decay parameters, resulting in an overall condition analysis of a rock art panel. The findings can then be grouped together by site location to gain a clearer understanding of overall decay processes responsible for (potential) erosion. This study highlights RASI, its use as a low-cost, non-invasive, rapid field assessment technique, and assesses the geomorphic stability of five major petroglyph sites in the Petrified Forest National Park.

The Sustainability of Rock Art: Preservation and Research

“…Different instruments (including low-cost instruments) and methodologies have been applied to perform structure-from-motion photogrammetry on rock art panels. Moreover, several indexes exist to scientifically estimate the stability of rock art and they are based mostly on biogeomorphology observations and in situ measurements [34,116]. Stability indexes offer the first effective tool to plan investigation and preservation strategies, as in the case of the Rock Art Stability Index [117,118].…”

Correlated Functional Models with Derivative Information for Modeling Microfading Spectrometry Data on Rock Art Paintings

“…Research has shown that there is a need for developing and testing new methods for assessing the state of preservation of materials and their potential degradation due to exposure to environmental factors. Studies on rock art have traditionally focus on the one hand, on the documentation, understanding and interpretation of the themes depicted by ancient civilizations [60][61][62][63], and on the other hand, on the preservation of paintings and petroglyphs [2,64,65]. Due to the complexity of materials found in rock art paintings, a combination of analytical techniques is often needed to provide a comprehensive identification of the pigment, substrate systems at a particular site [66].…”