Robin Homuth, age 12, of West Bend, Wisconsin, for his question:
What is meant by badlands?
Often our goods and bads are decided by what we happen to like and dislike. A steamy jungle is classified as bad because it makes people uncomfortable though it suits a chocolate coated okapi just fine. In North America, some regions are so unfriendly to people that we call them badlands. We tend to forget that nature does not arrange everything for the sole convenience of mankind and everything is good for something.
Most parts of this luxurious planet abound with treasures to enrich humanity. But in a few places, Mother Nature seems to say, "Here you may look but don't touch." These are the places we call the badlands. To us they are nearly impossible places to traverse, useless for farming and ranching. There are such places among the arid and semi arid regions of our western highlands. They were named badlands perhaps by the sturdy pioneers as they trekked across the continent. In 1939, the famous Badlands of South Dakota became a National Monument.
The earth began to form our various badlands ages ago. Plateaus of soft and rather porous rocks were lifted above the surrounding valleys and plains. Then winds and rains, floods and maybe melting snows set to work tearing down the uplifted levels. In these arid regions, short sharp showers pelted the plateaus and dashed downhill. These fierce deluges were too much for the uplifted layers of fine clay and frail shale, sand and gravel, soft sandstone and limestone. Gullies and gorges were cut deep into the ground and the regions became some of the roughest territory in the world.
When mankind arrived on the scene, the ancient plateaus were in the process of being leveled down to the surrounding plains and valleys. In many cases all that remains are jagged rows of ragged ridges. Here erosion has carved deep, steep arroyos and zig¬zagging, box sided canyons. Sheer cliffs may be sculptured like weird statues. The sharp grooves are cut close together down through many layers of ancient rocks. Their sides reveal the colors of these rocks and the colors are often wondrous to behold.
The badlands of South Dakota are carved from a plateau of sandstones and loose clays. In the 1740s, a fur trapper described their earth colors as blues and crimsons, grass green and shiny black, chalk white and ocre. These badlands are too rough for human habitation, but we still gape at their weird and colorful beauty. Utah's breathtaking Bryce Canyon is a limestone plateau where erosion has carved a gallery of monster statues in rosy browns. California's Borrego Badlands are sliced through pinkish, pearly and dove grey layers of clays and soft shales. In northern Arizona, nature created similar artistry by sculpturing through layers of compacted volcanic dust. The result is our world famous, rainbow tinted Painted Desert.
The badlands are there for people to admire. But these regions are home to many of nature's children. Grasses and seedy weeds often grow on the flat floors between the ridges. Mice and packrats scuttle among the twisting canyons; rattlers and other snakes slither around the ragged rocks. At night, coyotes holler their eerie cries from the toothy crags. And high on the lofty peaks, the lordly eagles make their nests.