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Gumbo's Pic of the Day. April 22, 2014: Alberta's Badlands

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Driving 1.5 hours northeast from Calgary over the prairies, the landscape changes suddenly from rolling grassland and grain crops to dramatically eroded hilly layered sedimentary rock formations.  These are Alberta's Badlands, a rough inhospitable environment likely named by pioneers who found these "Bad lands" to cross with their wagons, and "Bad lands" or try to settle in.

 

There is a small town in this region, Drumheller, which is the heart of Alberta's Badlands. Drumheller began as an important coal-mining center but today it's best known as the "dinosaur capital of the world", for the world's largest deposits of fossilized dinosaur bones are found in the eroded Badlands landscape surrounding it.

 

Within the Badlands it's common to see "hoodoos", mushroom shaped eroded rock columns with a "head" wider than the body of the column.  Several examples are found near Drumheller.

 

Drumheller boasts an impressive dinosaur museum - the Royal Tyrrell Museum, but that's a subject for another day! 

 

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Images (5)
  • Horseshoe Canyon, near Drumhuller
  • Alberta's Badlands landscapes near Drumheller
  • Exploring Alberta's Badland landscapes
  • Exploring Alberta's Badland landscapes
  • Hoodoos, near Drumheller

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