Transcript Badlands National Park - Brown-Leach15

By: Bennett Gorbatoff
Badlands National Park,
South Dakota, USA
Badlands National Park
Badlands Wilderness Area
Stronghold Unit
Palmer Creek Unit
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People have been fascinated by the Badlands throughout
history.
Native American stories and legends recognize the
Badlands geology, landscape, and fossils.
Early Europeans, homesteaders, ranchers, and the state of
South Dakota also recognized the Badlands and wanted to
protect it.
The Badlands National Monument was established in 1939.
It was redesignated Badlands National Park on November
10, 1978.
There are over 200,000 acres of protected land within the
park consisting of spires, a grass prairie, eroded buttes, and
pinnacles.
The National Park Service manages the park.
The Oglala Lakota Tribe also helps manage some areas of
the park.
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The landscape is roughly half badlands geologic
formations and half mixed grass prairie ecosystem.
The Badlands geologic formations are made up of rugged
spires and deep canyons.
The mixed grass prairie ecosystem is alive with a variety
of plants and animals.
Scientists have found 39 mammal species, 9 reptile
species, 6 amphibian species, 206 bird species, and 69
butterfly species.
The park also contains fossil resources.
The White River Badlands contains the largest known
number of late Eocene and Oligocene mammal fossils.
Fossil research from the Badlands has given significant
information to the science of vertebrate paleontology in
North America.
Fossil Poaching
 A major concern at Badlands National Park.
 Park Rangers educate the public and visitors about the
importance of not taking fossils from the park.
Prairie Fires
 Have occurred naturally through lightening for centuries.
 Native American used to start fires to move out animals.
 In the 20th century, people started stopping fires.
 The Park now has an active fire management program.
 Each year the park burns a set number of acres of prairie.
The prairies recover quickly, usually in 3 to 4 weeks.
Reintroduction of the Black-Footed Ferret
 Badlands National Park was selected as one of the areas in
the U.S. to reintroduce the endangered black-footed ferret.
 Approximately 25 to 30 ferrets now live in the Badlands.
 The wild born ferrets in the park are now producing babies
of their own.
• The Badlands is made up of layers
of rock.
• The layers were formed from
deposits of sand, silt, clay and
volcanic ash which were cemented
together into sedimentary rock.
• As the environment of the Badlands
changed over the years, so did the
types of deposits.
• The picture to the right is an
example of a typical rock formation
in the Park.
• Each layer was formed during a
different time period beginning 75
million years ago.
28-30 million years ago
30 million years ago
30-34 million years ago
34-37 million years ago
37-69 million years ago
69-75 million years ago
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The black-footed ferret was close to extinction in the 1970s.
Artificial insemination was used to help bread the ferrets in
captivity. Once their numbers had grown large enough, they
were reintroduced into the Badlands National Park in 1994.
The National Park Service has monitored air quality in the
Badlands National Park for more than 10 years using light
technology. Light is emitted from one telescope and
received by another 2.5 miles away.
The National Park Service monitors grasslands in the Park.
Chemicals are sometimes used to control the unhealthy
spread of non-native plants.
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The Badlands is largely the result of two basic geologic
processes: deposition and erosion.
The Badlands were deposited in layers of tiny grains of
sediments including sand, silt, clay and volcanic ash that
cemented together into sedimentary rocks.
The sedimentary rock layers were deposited from 75 to 26
million years ago.
The layers similar in character are grouped into units called
formations. The oldest formations are at the bottom and the
youngest are at the top, illustrating the principle of
superposition.
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Different environments including sea, tropical land,
woodlands with rivers, and volcanic activity, caused
different sediments to accumulate in the park at
different times.
Erosion began in the Badlands about 500,000 years ago
when the Cheyenne River captured streams and rivers
flowing from the Black Hills into the Badlands region.
The streams and rivers cut down through the rock
layers, carving fantastic shapes into what had once
been a flat floodplain.
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The Badlands erode at the rapid rate of about one inch per
year.
Evidence suggests that they will erode completely away in
another 500,000 years, giving them a life span of just one
million years.
Not a long period of time from a geologic perspective.
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United States. National Park Service. "Badlands National Park (U.S.
National Park Service)." National Parks Service. U.S. Department of
the Interior, 18 Nov. 2015. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.
BasicPlanet. "Badlands National Park." Earth Facts and Information.
Bioexpedition, 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.
DO CITATOIN FOR VISITOR GUIDE LINK IN FAVORITES
FIX LATER: http://www.us-parks.com/badlands-nationalpark/critical-park-issues.html
http://www.natgeomaps.com/badlands-national-park
http://www.pickatrail.com/topo-map/b/badlands-nationalpark.html
http://www.blackhillsvisitor.com/featuredarticles.html?pid=879&sid=1313:Black-Hills-and-BadlandsGeology
http://www.nps.gov/badl/planyourvisit/upload/Air-Quality-SiteBulletin.pdf
http://www.nps.gov/badl/learn/nature/geologicformations.htm