The Goodness of the Badlands

In several arid and semi-arid places in the world one can encounter the bizarre-looking landscapes of clay and other sediments known as badlands. From French les mauvaises terres and closely resembling the Spanish word for a related but different landscape malpais, badlands are characterized by landscapes that look as though a clay bed sheet has been draped over many small hills and knolls, which sometimes rise into sharp knife-edged ridges and fins. There are usually rocks and boulders of sedimentary rock scattered about and sometimes these rocks end up as cap rocks on clay towers known as hoodoos. Badlands lack or have a very shallow regolith, which means there is little soil for vegetation to take root. The landscape is easily eroded by water and wind, and only hardy scrub plants such as sage brush and prairie grasses exist to a relatively moderate degree of abundance. Some flowering plants can also find a place to sprout in the cracks of rocks.

In the Province of Alberta, Canada is one of the most significant badland locations in the world. Sediments were laid down during the Late Cretaceous – from 75 to 65 million years ago – when the area was in a transition zone that was at times a shallow inland sea, a swamp, a river delta, or a flood plain. Over this period, prehistoric life left its remains in the sediments and the area is now said to be one of the two richest dinosaur fossil beds in the world, the other one being in China. Alberta’s badlands are at their most impressive and fossil-rich in Dinosaur Provincial Park, not far from the city of Calgary; however the Royal Tyrell Museum is located along the Red Deer River Valley just north of Drumheller. Farther south near Rosedale are the famous hoodoos with their cap rocks.

One interesting ingredient in the badlands clay matrix is the inclusion of a glassy igneous material resulting from volcanic ash fallout from the Yellowstone volcanoes. This material forms a crystalline clay-like mineral called montmorillomite and is the key ingredient in bentonite clay – a soapy, highly plastic clay which swells in water. When dry, bentonite clay is very hard. I once found a pencil sticking out of some dry clay but in spite of tugging with all my might I could not remove it. When wet, bentonite clay swells and becomes horrendously gooey. Walking on the stuff after a rain, I felt myself gaining height as the clay stuck to my boots. It is also terribly slippery and no fun to slide and fall down in. Easy to wash out with some serious scrubbing effort when wet, the clay cements itself to any surface when dry. If it gets between the fibres of the fabric of your clothes, it’s a futile effort to scratch it off with a fingernail, and a chisel is almost required to remove dried bentonite clay from a pair of boots.

The badlands are an exotic landscape to explore and rich in photographic landscape art potential. Go for the bones, stay for the photography!

Read more about the Alberta badlands

Read more about bentonite clay.