North Dakota Badlands

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is in the colorful North Dakota badlands and is home to a variety of plants and animals, including bison, prairie dogs, and elk. ...

Here in the North Dakota badlands, where many of his personal concerns first gave rise to his later environmental efforts, Roosevelt is remembered with a national park that bears his name and honors the memory of this great conservationist. ... [Read More]

Theodore Roosevelt National Park - Natural History
About 60 million years ago, streams carried eroded materials eastward from the young Rocky Mountains and deposited them on a vast lowland -- today's Great Plains. During the warm, rainy periods that followed, dense vegetation grew, fell into swamp areas, and was later buried by new layers of sediments. Eventually this plant material turned into lignite coal. Some plantlife became petrified; today considerable amounts of petrified wood are exposed in the badlands. Bentonite, the blue-gray layer of clay , may be traced to ash from ancient volcanoes far to the west. But even as sediments were being deposited, streams were starting to cut down through the soft strata and to sculpt the infinite variety of buttes, tablelands, and valleys that made up the badlands we know today. ... [Read More]

Badlands National Park (National Park Service)
Located in southwestern South Dakota, Badlands National Park consists of 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires blended with the largest, protected mixed grass prairie in the United States. The Badlands Wilderness Area covers 64,000 acres and is the site of the reintroduction of the black-footed ferret, the most endangered land mammal in North America. The Stronghold Unit is co-managed with the Oglala Sioux Tribe and includes sites of 1890s Ghost Dances. Established as Badlands National Monument in 1939, the area was redesignated "National Park" in 1978. Over 11,000 years of human history pale to the ages old paleontological resources. 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. ... [Read More]

Theodore Roosevelt National Park - Welcome
Welcome to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park Official NPS Home Page. The colorful North Dakota badlands provides the scenic backdrop to the park which memorializes the 26th president for his enduring contributions to the conservation of our nation's resources. The park contains 70,448 acres divided among three units: South Unit, North Unit and the Elkhorn Ranch Unit. In the park you will find badlands, open prairie, hard wood draws, bison, prairie dogs and other wildlife, the Little Missouri River, and a past history that includes Theodore Roosevelt. ... [Read More]

For Families
Plan a trip out west to the "badlands" and see what drew Theodore Roosevelt there back in 1883. The colorful North Dakota Badlands provides the scenic backdrop to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, located in Medora, North Dakota. This National Park memorializes our 26th U.S. President for his enduring contributions to the conservation of our nation's resources. Step inside the rustic log cabin where TR spent much time while in the Dakota Badlands. His Maltese Cross Cabin has just been restored and within its walls you can see some of TR's belongings from his days as a cowboy, hunter, and rancher. ... [Read More]

Recreation.gov
Roosevelt first came to the badlands in September 1883 on a hunting trip. While here he became interested in the cattle business and invested in the Maltese Cross Ranch. He returned the next year and established the Elkhorn Ranch. ...

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is in the colorful North Dakota badlands and is home to a variety of plants and animals, including bison, prairie dogs, and elk. ...

Here in the North Dakota badlands, where many of his personal concerns first gave rise to his later environmental efforts, Roosevelt is remembered with a national park that bears his name and honors the memory of this great conservationist. ... [Read More]

CVO Menu - America's Volcanic Past - North Dakota
The most widespread and spectacular badlands in North Dakota border the Little Missouri River, northward from the headwaters area in Wyoming, where they are developed in rocks as old as Cretaceous, to the point where the river flows into the Missouri River. Some exposures in the northern part of the Little Missouri Badlands are eroded from beds as young as Eocene age, but most of the area of the badlands along the Little Missouri River is carved from the Bullion Creek and Sentinel Butte formations, both of Paleocene age. The sedimentary layers exposed in the Little Missouri Badlands are mainly continental sediments that were deposited by rivers and streams flowing east to the Dakotas from the Rocky Mountains in Montana and Wyoming at the time of the Laramide orogeny. They consist of layers of poorly lithified siltstone, claystone, sandstone, and lignite coal that were deposited in a coastal plain environment. River, floodplain, and swamp deposits predominate. Bluish gray layers of weat ... [Read More]

Theodore Roosevelt National Park Geology
Geologic processes continue to shape the badlands. Yearly precipitation in the badlands averages 15 inches. Rain, though infrequent at times, usually comes in heavy, erosive downpours. Water running down slope forms gullies, while some soaks into clay-rich rocks and soils. The added weight of water sometimes causes portions of hill sides to break loose and flow downhill. ...

You might wonder how scientists can tell how old the rocks are and what the environment was like when they formed. The sediments in the rocks give some clues, but the best clues are fossils. The North Dakota badlands contain a wealth of fossil information including bands of lignite coal and petrified trees plus fossils of freshwater clams, snails, crocodiles, alligators, turtles, and champsosaurs. Each fossil is like a piece in a giant puzzle that scientists have used to reconstruct the ancient history of the park. These clues indicate that the park was once on the eastern edge of a flat, swampy area covered with rivers that fanned out into a broad, sea-level delta. This swampy region contained dense forests of sequoia, bald cypress, magnolia, and other water-loving trees growing in or near the shallow waters. ... [Read More]

Geology of Theodore Roosevelt National Park
About 60 million years ago, streams carried eroded materials eastward from the young Rocky Mountains and deposited them on a vast lowland— today's Great Plains. During the warm, rainy periods that followed, dense vegetation grew, fell into swampy areas, and was later buried by new layers of sediments. Eventually this plant material turned to lignite coal . Some plantlife became petrified; today considerable amounts of petrified wood are exposed in the badlands. Bentonite , the blue-gray layer of clay, may be traced to ash from ancient volcanoes far to the west. But even as sediments were being deposited, streams were starting to cut down through the soft strata and to sculpt the infinite variety of buttes, tablelands, and valleys that make up the badlands we know today. ... [Read More]

Ecoregions of North Dakota and South Dakota
T he Northwestern Great Plains ecoregion encompasses the Missouri Plateau section of the Great Plains. It is a semiarid rolling plain of shale, siltstone, and sandstone punctuated by occasional buttes and badlands. Native grasslands persist in areas of steep or broken topography, but they have been largely replaced by spring wheat and alfalfa over most of the ecoregion. Agriculture is limited by erratic precipitation patterns and limited opportunities for irrigation. ...

43b. Little Missouri Badlands ... [Read More]