Badlands National Park’s layered stone and wide prairie

Badlands National Park in South Dakota lies near the small community of Interior and brings together serrated bands of sedimentary rock with a broad sweep of prairie grassland. The park records tens of millions of years of geological change in its exposed layers, making it an unusual combination of rugged buttes and open plains in the Great Plains of the United States.

Stone “layer cake” shaped by water and time

The landscape of Badlands National Park is built from stacked sedimentary rock laid down between roughly 75 and 28 million years ago, then carved by erosion into ridges, gullies and freestanding spires. These layers include sandstones, siltstones, mudstones, claystones, limestones, shale and bands of volcanic ash that together create a distinct striping of colour on many slopes.sandstones, siltstones, mudstones The oldest exposed rocks in the park form the Pierre Shale, deposited in the Late Cretaceous when a shallow inland sea covered this part of North America.Pierre Shale deposited about 75 million years ago

Later formations within the Tertiary White River Group add further bands to this “layer cake”, including the Chadron and Brule formations from the Eocene and Oligocene, followed by the Sharps Formation near the top of many slopes.Chamberlain Pass, Chadron, Brule and Sharps formations About half a million years ago rivers such as the Cheyenne and White began to incise deeply into this plateau, cutting narrow channels and revealing the stripes of different rock units that visitors see on the eroded faces today.water began to cut down through the rock layers

From national monument to expansive park

Badlands National Park is administered by the United States National Park Service and covers more than 240,000 acres of terrain east of the Black Hills in southwestern South Dakota.encompasses 242,756 acres The protected area lies within Jackson, Oglala Lakota and Pennington counties and spans badlands topography along with a large tract of mixed?grass prairie that contrasts with the stark rock forms.location in Jackson, Oglala Lakota and Pennington counties

Congress first authorised Badlands National Monument in 1929, and it was formally redesignated as Badlands National Park on 10 November 1978.authorised as Badlands National Monument in 1929redesignated as Badlands National Park in 1978 Within its boundaries, the park holds one of the richest collections of Oligocene?age vertebrate fossils known, preserving animals from ancient subtropical forests and savannahs in the rock record.richest collection of Oligocene?age vertebrate fossils

Prairie, rivers and distant volcano ash

Badlands National Park sits on the high Great Plains, bounded broadly by the Cheyenne River to the north and west, the Bad River to the east and the White River to the south.bounded by Cheyenne, Bad and White river drainage basins Elevations in the park range from around 750 m (2,460 ft) along Sage Creek to about 1,000 m (3,280 ft) on Sheep Mountain Table, giving visitors broad views across the dissected plateau and surrounding grasslands.elevations range from 750 m to 1,000 m

Among the upper rock layers, bands of light?coloured volcanic ash record eruptions in what is now Nevada and Utah, with ash carried eastward before settling on this region and later hardening into tuff.volcanic ash originated from volcanoes over 500 miles away On the ground, expanses of mixed?grass prairie reach out from the bases of the badlands, supporting native grasses and wildlife across what has been described as the largest protected mixed?grass prairie in the United States.largest protected mixed grass prairie

Visiting Badlands National Park: what travellers from Western Europe should know

• Badlands National Park lies in southwestern South Dakota, with the Ben Reifel Road leading to the main developed area near Interior and the Ben Reifel Visitor Center.
• The terrain within the badlands consists of steep, eroded slopes and narrow drainages, and many viewpoints and trails involve walking on uneven ground and negotiating short climbs.
• The park combines higher points such as Sheep Mountain Table with lower valleys like Sage Creek, so weather and exposure can vary significantly between plateau tops and sheltered gullies.
• Badlands National Park preserves a large area of mixed?grass prairie, and distances between viewpoints and trailheads can be considerable in this open landscape.
• The official language is English and the currency is the United States dollar; entry requirements depend on your nationality, UK travellers can check the FCDO travel advice at gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice, Irish travellers the Department of Foreign Affairs at ireland.ie.

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Frequently asked questions about Badlands National Park

Where is Badlands National Park located?

Badlands National Park is in southwestern South Dakota, east of the Black Hills, near Interior and within Jackson, Oglala Lakota and Pennington counties.

What should visitors expect on a visit?

Visitors encounter sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires alongside broad areas of mixed?grass prairie, with viewpoints and trails crossing uneven, sometimes steep terrain.

What makes Badlands National Park distinctive?

The park combines extensive badlands topography, one of the richest known collections of Oligocene vertebrate fossils and a large protected prairie, all recording around 75 million years of Earth history.