1 active Badlands alert
- ClosureNotch Trail closed for ladder repairsNotch Trail and all areas within 100 feet of the designated trail are closed; do not enter the closure area.Official details
Overview
About Erosion Markers
Why stop
- Makes a slow geological process visible in a few survey markers.
Heads up
- The exact safe stopping point is unclear.
Map
Where it is
Loading the Badlands map
Full mapPlan your stop
Before you go
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Badlands Tour Guide
Your drive to Erosion Markers, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Badlands National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Badlands audio tourRecorded for this area
Yellow Mounds and Conata Basin0:00 / 0:32
“You're coming up on the Yellow Mounds and Conata Basin overlooks, where mustard-yellow hills sit below purple bands and paler ridges.”
Plays on the road 0.2 mi from Erosion Markers in the Parkwolf Badlands Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- Conata Picnic Area and Deer Haven
- Conata Basin's Ferret Comeback
- What an Oreodont's Teeth Reveal
- Homestead Overlook
- 116 audio storiesacross Badlands’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Bison, Bighorn Sheep, Prairie Dog, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 11 trails, 34 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“We recently toured Badlands, Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore and more! We learned so much from this app as we toured each of these sites. The audio tours are worth the money.”
Guide
More about Erosion Markers
A small stop with a geology lessonErosion Markers is a minor feature on a soft clay slope, where survey markers are gradually…
Erosion Markers is a minor feature on a soft clay slope, where survey markers are gradually weathering out of the Chadron Formation. If geology is your thing, it makes erosion tangible; the park’s larger overlooks are a better use of time when you’re choosing only a few stops.
Check your stopping pointThe site is described as just off the road, but its exact safe approach and parking place…
The site is described as just off the road, but its exact safe approach and parking place aren’t established. Treat the listed coordinate as the feature’s location, not as a confirmed pullout. Don’t stop in the travel lane or on an unsafe shoulder. If you have a safe place to pause, include a marker against the layered ridges so the small post reads in the larger landscape.
The clay is 37 to 34 million years oldThe markers sit in the Chadron Formation, light gray claystone deposited about 37 to 34 million…
The markers sit in the Chadron Formation, light gray claystone deposited about 37 to 34 million years ago across an ancient floodplain. Fossils from the formation included alligators and brontotheres, a very different world from the dry slope you see now.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Badlands
760 sightingsBisonMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
1,060 sightingsBighorn SheepMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
904 sightingsPrairie DogMost seen around 5 PMSighting map
333 sightingsPronghornMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
304 sightingsMule DeerMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
87 sightingsCoyoteMost seen around 7 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Badlands. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
