Badlands

Badlands, rugged, inhospitable regions of fantastically shaped rock masses and hills almost bare of vegetation, separated by labyrinthine valleys. Such formations are caused by erosion in regions of soft, unconsolidated rock where short periods of heavy rain alternate with long periods of drought. The little vegetation that grows during the dry period is insufficient to check erosion and is washed away with the soil by the rains. The principal badlands in the United States are in the western parts of the Dakotas and northwestern Nebraska.