Black Hills Vs Badlands

1. Introduction

Conservation of natural resources in The Black Hills and The Badlands is of extreme importance. Without the conservation of natural resources The Black Hills and The Badlands would cease to exist. Without The Black Hills and The Badlands South Dakota’s economy would be in trouble because tourism is one of South Dakota’s largest industry (“Travel South Dakota”).

Every natural resource inside of The Black Hills and The Badlands needs to be preserved. If one natural resource is not preserved it will have a negative effect on one or multiple other natural resources. Take the prairie dogs for example, the prairie dogs are food for the black footed ferret and their burrows are homes for other animals. If the prairie dog dies

The clays and poorly consolidated rock make the badlands easily eroded (Graham, 2008). The Badlands National Park was formed from the deposition of these poorly consolidated rocks. After the rocks were deposited they experience a lot of erosion, and the erosion is what shaped the badlands into what we see today. In The Badlands National park you can see the Pierre Shale, the Chadron Formation, and the Brule Formation (). Within the Brule Formation there is a red paleosol layer ().

The Black Hills formed from a completely different geologic process then The Badlands. The Black Hills that we see today formed during the Laramide Orogeny. The uplift from two tectonic plates colliding is what gives The Black Hills its topography. Before the Laramide Orogeny there were igneous rocks that formed from the cooling of magma, sedimentary rocks that were deposited from rivers carrying sediment into a shallow sea, and some metamorphic rocks. All of these rocks formed a flat topography before the Laramide Orogeny.

2. Wind Mills in Southwestern

Missouri River

The Missouri River has two main uses. The west side likes to use the river for fishing and recreation. The east side likes to use the river for commercial and industrial use. The east side uses the river to move barges upstream. This has created a big controversy over what should be built on the river. The west wants to build damns to create reservoirs for the fish to live in, while the east want the river to be left alone so the barges can travel more easily on the river.

The reservoirs that are created by putting damns on the river are also used as a water supply because the river flows through a semi-arid climate. If these reservoirs are not preserved then the fish population will go down, which will cause the recreational use of the reservoirs to go down. The reservoirs also supply water to people and to farmland, so if the reservoirs are not preserved then that area would have to find somewhere else to get its