Gooseberry Badlands
Wyoming
The Gooseberry Badlands are located in northern Wyoming's Bighorn Basin. The rocks here are part of the Eocene-aged Willwood Formation, a succession of nonmarine, mixed siliciclastic sedimentary rocks (shales to sandstones). "Badlands" classically refers to land that is unsuitable for farming. Such landscapes are dominated by relatively soft shales and mudrocks, which weather and erode quickly into steep slopes with little to no soil and little to no vegetation. This image was captured as the end of day's most colorful light illuminated the west-facing rocks manifesting the spectacular red-orange reflection. Photo © copyright by Robert Faucher.