First Blog: Badlands Formations

The Badlands of South Dakota are home to many unique rock formations that drastically affect the geographical landscape. Due to high amounts of rain and wind the weather plays a large part of shaping the land into canyons, and gullies. Each year the land erodes 1 inch on average. The Badlands erosion was caused by the Cheyenne river converging into other smaller rivers and streams.This extensive amount of eroding uncovers fossilized remains faster and makes the Badlands one of the richest fossil beds in North America. The badlands started eroding roughly 500,000 years ago but Due to rapid eroding, they are predicted to be gone completely in another half a million years which is a short period of time in geological perspective.

Photo Credits:

http://static-www.icr.org/i/articles/af/sedimentary_structure_wide.jpg

The rock that is being washed away by rain and wind is sedimentary rock, which is formed by tiny grains of sediment such as sand, silt, and clay that have been cemented together forming the sedimentary rock. As the sediments are washed away with water and blown off with wind, they begin to reveal the rich amount of fossils buried in the depths of the Badlands. The layers of sediment are visible showing what collected over the millions of years before eroding started.

 

Photo Credits:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Chinle_Badlands.jpg

 

The sedimentary rock is broken into layers called strata, which deposit different types of materials over millions of years that build up and create the badlands. Each sepeate layer is made up of a different material such as sand,silt or clay which is cemented together to form and harden each individual layer to one another.

 

Summary: The Badlands were formed over millions of years of collecting layers of material and building up. The Land was then formed by water and wind erosion that revealed the fossils buried in the sedimentary layers of the earth, and soon the erosion will make the Badlands completely disappear.