Driving south out of Farmington, New Mexico on Highway 271, to visit a school on the Navajo Reservation, we happened by a sign for the Bisti Badlands. As a science educator teaching Earth Science at Plymouth State University, I had to explore further. I learned the Bisiti/De-na-zin Badlands is a federally designated wilderness area. About 36 miles south of Farmington, there is a brown interpretive historical marker on the west side of the highway, and then a marked gravel road turns east off the highway leading to a parking area. The road continues past the parking area, but deadends at a fence across the road making a loop drive impossible, we tried. At the parking lot, there is a wire fence with a gate to allow hikers through. The entry is posted ˜No motorized vehicles”. There doesn’t appear to be a clear, marked hiking trail. We later found a description in the Best Western Guest Directory claiming the best formations are about a two mile hike from the parking area. The rest of the description read, ˜Once home to dinosaurs, [the Bisti Badlands] now offers excellent photographic opportunities of its strange and unique formations.” The highway historical marker reads, “The highly scenic badlands of the Bisti were created by the erosion and weathering of interbedded shale, sandstone and coal formations into unusual forms. The area is also rich in fossil flora and fauna. 3,946 acres of the Badlands were designated a Wilderness Area by Congress in 1984 to preserve their scenic and cultural value. The Wilderness is protected by federal law.”
I found another reference in, ‘Hiking The Southwest’s Geology: Four Corners Region’, by Ralph Lee Hopkins, 2002, Moutaineers Books, p. 237-239. Some of my questions were answered about the age and unusually vibrant red color of the rocks. I learned from Hopkins that the eroded sedimentary rocks are of the Cretaceous Fruitland Formation. In the register box by the gate there were pieces of petrified wood. Hopkins also explained that the dark bands of rocks we saw are organic-rich shales intermized with thin coal seams.
Most interesting to me, was Hopkin’s explanation about the formation of the most colorful, pinkish-red rocks, known as ‘clinker’. Apparently, burning coal layers beneath oxidized or ‘cooked’ these sedimentary sandstone and shale rock layers above. “The burning is a natural process sparked by lightning when coal beds are at or near the surface. Erosion has now exposed the clinker beds” (p. 239). Regretfully, we didn’t hike far enough to notice the petrified wood marking the channels of ancient streambeds. I was also curious about what kind of fossil fauna could be found as referenced on the highway marker and learned from Hopkins that there are dinosaur tracks and bones (of tridactyls) discovered in the same geologic layer not too far from the Designated Wilderness Area.
I realized we should have been more persistent in our explorations, when I learned what we had missed and only later read about in texts. Fortunately, the fabulous, maneuverable virtal tour of the Bisti Badlands, fills in the pictures, until I can return: http://jux2position.com/jux2position.html. Click on the lower left image of the Bisti Badlands to start your tour. You can see the badland hoodoo formations (formed by differential erosion of softer shale versus overlying sandstone caprocks) up close for yourself.
Another intriguing website, http://www.robertchavez.com/chavez/bisti/index.html, with the photos of aptly named formations like, “Alice in Wonderland”, “The Dali”, “The Cracked Eggs”, “The Hammer”, “The Mars Area”, and individual rocks with names like, “the duck” and “the lips”, convinced me, to return.
The more I’ve learned, the more I’ve decided the area warrants further exploration on my next trip.
I still have questions about the dinosaurs that roamed the area and details about turtle fossils I heard had been found in the area from a Farmington science educator.
It is nice to know that with so many nationally recognized, significant parks and monuments in the Four Corners area, there are still relatively unexplored, less frequentely visited geologic gems.
–Mary Ann McGarry, instructor
Do you know of any legends/stories concerning the Bisti, Navajo or otherwise.
Thank you.