Candee Broline, age 14, of Hawarden, Iowa,

What caused ‑the Dakota Badlands?

A region of badlands tends to form where the surface rock is dense and easily eroded. The climate is very dry and the rainfall tends to come in short, sharp deluges. A sudden downpour cannot sink through the surface rocks, but it can wear them down and wash them away. After a shower, the guihing runoff cuts deeper and deeper grooves into the ground.

We have regions of badlands in South Dakota and in the Painted Desert of Arizona. Here the ground is cut into a maze of steep gullies and ridged with sharp peaks and mesas, often carved and polished by blowing sands. The steep ups and down make a pathway impossible, but the layers of tinted rocks and the strange, barren formations are scenic wonderlands.