Badlands

badlands, area of severe erosion, usually found in semiarid climates and characterized by countless gullies, steep ridges, and sparse vegetation. Badland topography is formed on poorly cemented sediments that have few deep-rooted plants because short, heavy showers sweep away surface soil and small plants. Depressions gradually deepen into gullies. The term badlands was first applied to the arid, dissected plateau region of SW South Dakota by Native Americans and fur trappers who found the area difficult to cross. South Dakota's Big Badlands, also known as the Badlands of the White River, are the world's best and most extensive (c.2,000 sq mi/5,180 sq km) example of this topography. Gullies have cut as deep as 500 ft (152 m) below the plateau's surface, and differences in rock type have created colorful and spectacular formations. The Big Badlands are famous for fossils of prehistoric animals.

Badlands National Park, 242,756 acres (98,316 hectares), (authorized as a national monument in 1929, designated a national park in 1978) occupies most of the region. The park is noted for its scenery, its fossils of prehistoric animals, and its varied wildlife, including bison, bighorn sheep, deer, antelope, and prairie dogs. See National Parks and Monuments (table).

---

Badlands

Barren region covering some 2,000 sq mi (5,200 sq km) of southwestern South Dakota, U.S. It has an extremely rugged landscape almost devoid of vegetation. It was created by cloudbursts that cut deep gullies in poorly cemented bedrock; its extensive fossil deposits have yielded the remains of such animals as the three-toed horse, camel, saber-toothed tiger, and rhinoceros. Badlands National Park (379 sq mi [982 sq km]), lying mostly between the Cheyenne and White rivers, was established as a national monument in 1939 and a national park in 1978.

---

badlands [′bad‚lanz]

(geography)

An erosive physiographic feature in semiarid regions characterized by sharp-edged, sinuous ridges separated by steep-sided, narrow, winding gullies.

---

Badlands 

sharply and complexly disjointed low mountainous relief which is difficult to travel through and unsuitable for agriculture.

Badlands consist of an intricate set of branching gullies and the narrow ridges which divide them. They originate primarily in regions with a dry climate, especially where there are water-resistant clayey soils as a result of washing out by temporary (torrential) floods. They are widespread in most mountainous desert and semidesert areas of the world. As a result of irrational utilization of land and cutting down of mountain forests, badlands also arise in steppe and forest-steppe zones. The classical badlands developed in the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains in North America. In the USSR they are confined to the desert piedmont areas of Middle Asia, as well as Kazakhstan.