Badlands Eroding Away As this photo shows, Badlands National Park in South Dakota is a very striking
Badlands Eroding AwayAs this photo shows, Badlands National Park in South Dakota is a very striking landscape. Unfortunately it won’t be like this for long in geological terms.Badlands are found all over the world. They are semiarid regions with little vegetation. They also experience high rates of erosion.Badlands formations alternate between hard and soft layers. The hard layers, such as sandstone, somewhat protect the softer ones, which may be soil or hardened mud, but wind and heavy rains still take their toll. With little vegetation for protection, water can move very quickly down the formations, taking loose rocks and sediment with it. Clays within the formations will absorb the water and then crack and crumble as they dry out; this in turn will be washed away with the next heavy rains.Badlands National Park started eroding around 500,000 years ago. It is eroding at a rate of about 2.5cm (1 inch) per year. Geologists estimate that the formations may erode away completely in another 500,000 years – a short time on the geologic timescale.REPhoto Credit: Jay Wanta via U.S. Department of InteriorReferences:http://bit.ly/1F7hig3 -- source link
Tumblr Blog : the-earth-story.com
#badlands#erosion#national park#nature#sediment#travel#white river#geology