Final Blog

The Badlands of South Dakota is a very unique geographical landscape that has been formed over the last hundred million years by a constantly changing climate and environment. Over time, layers of sediment and other materials have collected and built up the layers of rock that the Badlands are made of. Extreme weather and climate change  such as rain, rivers and wind have carved out crevices and canyons in the rock formations creating the tall standing column rock formations that make up the Badlands. Water and wind have worked hand in hand with extreme weather to wash away and erode the rock layers and reveal the many layers of soil and rock buildup and the rich fossil beds trapped inside of the preserved landscape. Some of the extreme weather consists of a sea that covered the entire Badlands at one point in time almost 60 million years ago, followed by changing climate of dry hot weather that eventually turned into a cooler windy climate.
Today's landscape of the Badlands is a cooler desert climate. With high winds and precipitation, the soil erodes an average of 1 inch per year.

Ariel view of stream erosion on upper sediment levels

In 10,000 years, the geography of the land will be similar to how it is now but scaled way smaller. With the continuous erosion patterns, I believe the upper sedimentary layers of sand and silt will be gone because they sit on the top of the rock pillar formations, so they will be the most exposed to the elements. The gorges and crevices will continue to widen as they wash away as well being exposed to the high winds, creating more of a canyon type landscape. Many of the rich fossil beds lie in the middle and upper layers of the formations so in the next ten thousand years most of the fossils should become exposed and will give us a better understanding as of what lived in the badlands over its geographic timeline over the last 100 million years.

In 1,000,000 years, the Badlands will be a vastly different landscape. From what I have learned about how fast the soil is eroding away, over an inch each year. Assuming the continual flooding and wind patterns remain somewhat constant, there will be nothing left of the  Badlands in  less than 1 million years. The Badlands started eroding away roughly half a million years ago and based on research and predictions it will be gone in less than another 500,000 years which is an extremely short period of time based on the geological timeline.

Its hard to tell how the Badlands will look In 100,000,000 years but based on how it has formed in the past and with other elements affecting it, including rivers that run through it and extreme weather patterns, I believe it will flood and become a large body of water depending on how deeply the soil will erode into the ground. After all, the Badlands started as a low lying sea of water before any of the Formations ever began.

Photo Credits:
 stream erosion-http://geology.campus.ad.csulb.edu/people/bperry/GrantPhotos/InlandFlightOct05/BorregoBadlandsStreamErosionOct05L.jpg