BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK, SOUTH DAKOTA

Bison, bighorn sheep, prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets live on the 244,000 acres that make up Badlands National Park in South Dakota. Well known for its rugged beauty, the park’s striking geologic formations contain one of the world’s richest fossil beds. Over millions of years, layers of rock were slowly stacked on top of each other, giving the formations their height. Around 500,000 years ago, the Cheyenne and White Rivers carved their way through the landscape forming the narrow channels, canyons and rugged peaks we see today. Eroding at the rate of about one inch per year, it is estimated that in the next 500,000 years, these formations will have eroded completely.