Badlands

The Chinle Badlands at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

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Badlands are a type of arid terrain with clay-rich soil that has been extensively eroded by wind and water. Canyons, ravines, gullies, hoodoos and other such geological forms are common in badlands. Badlands usually have a spectacular color display that alternates from dark black/blue coal stria to bright clays to red scoria.

The term "badlands" probably originated in a couple of ways. The Lakota called the topograpy "mako sica", literally "bad lands", and French trappers called it "les mauvaises terres à traverser" - "the bad lands to cross". The naming is apt. Badlands form in areas of infrequent but intense rainshowers and sparse vegetation, a recipe for devastating erosion. The landscape contains steep slopes, loose soil, and clay, all of which inhibit easy travel.

Some of the most famous fossil beds are found in badlands, where the forces of erosion have exposed the sedimentary layers and the lack of vegetation cover makes surveying relatively easy.

Some of the best-known badland formations can be found in the United States and Canada. In the U.S., Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota and Badlands National Park in South Dakota have extensive badlands formations. Another popular area of badland formations is Toadstool Geologic Park in the Oglala National Grassland of northwestern Nebraska. There is a sizeable badland area in Alberta, Canada, particularly in the valley of the Red Deer River where Dinosaur Provincial Park is located. The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta is also in a badlands setting, and exhibits fossils found in the area.

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