Badlands National Park, a startlingly beautiful desolation
The Badlands
National Park in south-west South Dakota is an eerie place of startlingly
beautiful desolation. From the ragged ridges and saw-toothed spires, to
the sharply eroded buttes and pinnacles and the wind-ravaged moonscape of
the Sage Creek Wilderness Area, Badlands National Park is an unsettling
yet awe-inspiring experience.
The Sioux Indians named this land `mako sica' or 'land bad' and early
French-Canadian trappers labelled it `les mauvaises terres a traverser'
or 'bad lands to cross' because of its inhospitable terrain, the result
of deposition and partial erosion of sedimentary rocks.
The serrated ridges and deep canyons of the Badlands were formed about
500,000 years ago, when water began to cut through the rock layers,
carving fantastic shapes in the flat floodplain. Ancient rocks, buried
for millions of years, became exposed. Erosion averages around 2.5 cm (1
in) a year, so the buttes will be gone in 500,000 years.
The Badlands are one of the richest Oligocene fossil beds known. Fossils
of 25-35 million-year-old three-toed horses, dog-sized camels, sabretooth
tigers, giant pigs and other species have been found. Some 11,000 years
of human history are here, too, including the sites of Sioux Ghost Dances
(protests at government land-grabs) of 1890.
A walk through the Badlands visualizing its human history and the
geological processes that have taken place here is truly a must.
