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There is a "blue forest" sort of place in Nausicaa where trees are broken in a
very peculiar way. Normally trees break apart along the growth rings, and not
strictly across like seen in this image:

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CTv8E.jpg)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/CTv8E.jpg)

Some trees look like someone cut those pieces. From the movie we can
understand that the trees are dead, but how did they end up in this particular
state?


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2015-08-19T22:58:32.580
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question
nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind
What is up with all those broken trees in the blue forest?


My assumption is that Miyazaki wanted to give the forest a feeling of great
age. It would hardly look like an old forest without a few trees that had
fallen or been cut. We are led to believe that these trees were cut when the
forest was much younger.

Of course, there are several questions that come out of this.

  * Why didn't these fallen trees decay (either the fallen part or the stumps)? Yes, there are examples of root systems intertwining, but this doesn't appear to be that way.
  * Why isn't there any underbrush?
  * If these trees are petrified, what purifies the water? If they aren't petrified, why isn't there any moss?

I think Miyazaki was aiming for the look and feel of an ancient forest with
conflicting ideals.


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2015-08-20T16:31:26.680
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In the series the "Forest of Decay" grows above the petrified remains of
ancient trees. Dialogue from the anime and manga suggest that the toxins from
the immense pollution humanity caused in the past are absorbed by the plants
while water and sand are filtered through the remains of the petrified wood
and become purified, which is why the wells that people made have clean soil
and water.

The petrified trees seems to be in part inspired by the natural process of
[petrified wood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrified_wood), a special type
of fossilization.

> the result of a tree or tree-like plants having completely transitioned to
> stone by the process of permineralization. All the organic materials have
> been replaced with minerals (mostly a silicate, such as quartz), while
> retaining the original structure of the stem tissue

The actual process of petrification and filtering were or touched upon in the
anime or manga. However in the manga it's inferred to be part of the
artificially process ancient the humans created to clean up the miasma over
time.


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