• 242,756 acres
• 64,000 acres = Badlands Wilderness Area
• National Monument - 1939, National Park - 1978
• Eroded buttes and grasslands
• Northwestern South Dakota
Badlands National Park
• Gateway to Sturgis and the “Heads”
• Why is it called Badlands?
• Terrain impassable
• Very little water
• Thin soils
How do Badlands Form?
• Soft Rocks - not resistant to erosion
– Mudstones, shales, sandstones, bentonite
• Semi-arid climate
• Yearly rainfall - several large events
– Rapid erosion
• Grasslands
– No large plants (root systems)
• The Wall
– A drainage divide
Local Infamous History
• Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
• Wounded Knee Creek
• Lahkota Chief Bigfoot - 1890
• 7th Cavalry
• Wounded Knee Massacre
Cenozoic - Age of the Mammals
Badlands - Age of the Rocks
• Badlands & Teddy
• Dinosaur National Monument
• Arches
• Guadalupe’s and Carlsbad
• Appalachians
• Grand Canyon
Geology of the Badlands
• White River Group
– Paleogene Period, Oligocene Epoch - 35 to 26 Ma
• Pierre Shale & Yellow Mounds
• Cretaceous black (basinal) shale and ancient soil
• Chadron, Brule, and Sharpe formations
• Mudstone, shale, sandstone, bentonite
• Rivers, floodplains, lakes, soils
Cenozoic History
• Laramide Orogeny - Rocky Mountains Form - 45 Ma
• Oligocene - 35 to 23 Ma
– Transition from tropical to arid climate
• Large mammals on the North American Craton
Cenozoic Life
• Oligocene - transistion from forested flood plain to semi-arid grasslands
• Large mammals
• Titanotheres
• Horses and camels
• Large predators
• Rodents
• Oreodonts
Badlands Fossils
• Evolution of Horses
• From browsers to grazers
• Reflects the appearance of grasslands