Geology Picture of the Week, July 24-30, 2005: Badlands

Zepu Zhang's photos ^ | Zepu Zhang

[cogitator]

I was inspired for this week by the end of the miniseries "Into the West", where some of the scenes took place near the Badlands.

The site where I found this is by an "amateur", but he's got some great shots. I'll have to go through it thoroughly. He has a long Yellowstone section, and I'm a Yellowstone aficionado, but the features aren't labeled, so it's a little frustrating.

[cogitator]

** ping **

[pax_et_bonum]

I'd love to be on your ping list!

[cripplecreek]

You might find some good Badlands (and everywhere else) photos here. http://www.worldisround.com/browse/

Just searching around here and looking at the photos of others Ive found great photos of Ayers rock in Australia, The grand canyon, etc.

[cogitator]

You're on the ping list!

[pax_et_bonum]

Thank you very much!

[Lil'freeper]

Thank you! Beautiful!

[LibWhacker]

Nice! I wonder how old some of those layers are; i.e., is it a good place to hunt for dinosaur fossils?

[cogitator]

I wonder how old some of those layers are; i.e., is it a good place to hunt for dinosaur fossils?

From the Badlands National Park Web site:

"Badlands National Park contains the world's richest Oligocene epoch fossil beds, dating 23 to 35 million years old. Scientists can study the evolution of mammal species such as the horse, sheep, rhinoceros and pig in the Badlands formations."

So it's more recent than the dinosaur epoch. For dinosaur fossils, head to North Dakota or Montana.

[MarineBrat]

Incredible! There's so many horizontal features that when the picture initially popped up the first thing I thought was that there was damage to the photo, and that it had lots of horizontal artifacts introduced digitally or otherwise. Wow!

[Spok]

I've always envied John Colter who was with Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery. As they approached St. Louis on their return leg, he turned around and went back.

[loreldan]

I thought the same thing. Here's a picture I found that is kind of similar, but it's of Arches Nat'l Park. This one has vertical and horizontal lines. Both are beautiful.

http://jessespeer.com/galleries/black_and_white_photos/photos/galleryphoto_0002.html

[alwaysconservative]

Here's a view of the badlands you'd see if you were looking for fossils in North Dakota: Theodore Roosevelt National Park pictures

Simply beautiful.

[cogitator]

Thanks, that's a place I'd sure like to visit someday. Those concretions are amazing ("cannon balls").

[Barnacle]

Ahhhh... Badlands.