5. Badlands National Park
Posted by Emilie Taylor on
Today we’re talking all about Badlands! We’re still in the 2019 era of my paintings from the original 50 states project, South Dakota was halfway through as state 27 and is number 5 in my National Parks.
In my Teddy Roosevelt video I touched on the fact that Badland is both a geographical place; Badlands National park ,and a geologic term, describing terrains typically associated by soft sedimentary rocks like sandstone, siltstone, mudstone, clay-stone, limestone, volcanic ash, and shale. Whew. So the layers you see and all the beautiful colors are because of the erosion over time of the soft badlands rock.
Badland National Park is one I’ve been to as well, I think we went in 2005 We saw Rount Mushmore as my little brother Danny called it. And of course Badlands National Park. Coming from a life in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, Badlands feels like another planet. Which brings me to this fun fact.
The name Badlands comes from the Lakota, who first called it “mako sica”, meaning “land that is bad”. The lack of water, strange rock formations, and northern temperatures were the likely reasons. In more modern geologic terms, “badlands” has a new definition that we talked about earlier but I found the original naming to be interesting.
Badlands was established as a national monument first in 1939 and designated a national park on November 10th 1978. Same year and day as Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Which made me wondered how many parks have the same exact birthday and what that record is for parks established in one day. But that’s for a future video cause spoiler alert it’s more than these two!
Badlands National Park consists of many acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires blended with the largest, protected mixed-grass prairie in the United States. So while the area is known for the rocky landscape, the mixed grass prairie actually thrives and so do the Bison. Often Called buffalo by mistake. True Buffalo (Cape or water buffalo) are native to Africa and Asia. Here in the states we just have Bison. The Bison herd in Badlands was reintroduced in the 60s and proves resilient to the brutal midwest winters.
And Someone else who survives the cold winter is the prairie dog. But I just learned that they don’t hibernate as one would expect a burrowing animal to do. As the winter they eat more and will go into a state of torpor. In torpor, an animal’s body temperature, breathing rate, and metabolic rate all decrease. So the activities in prairie dog towns are slow but continue through winter. I remember spending time watching the funny little guys on that trip as well as an incredible sunset lighting up the badlands.
As Always please let me know if you’ve been to Badland National Park and what you loved. And I’ll be back next with another big Bison Park, the grandparent of National Parks if you will.
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