Eggs & Aliens in Bisti Badlands : New Mexico
#Thread
Bisti Badlands in New Mexico look more like a dreamscape or Alienland than a landscape. Resting beneath them sit what only can be described as giant cracked eggs, as if Mother Nature was cooking breakfast only to accidently
drop a carton onto the desert’s sandy floor and abandon the shattered shells.
How did a bunch of giant eggs get to this desolate area? The true story starts 73 million years ago.
At one time, this 45,000acre of desert called the Bisti Badlands was completely submerged by a sea
called the Western Interior Seaway during the Cretaceous Period. As the water receded, layers of sandstone, mudstone, shale and other sedimentary rocks were revealed, creating the Kirtland Formation, only to be carved out by braided streams that flowed through the landscape.
The result is today’s dry, eerie badlands.
“Over time, erosion of the soft mudstone weathered away leaving behind channel deposits [that formed into the shape of eggs and hoodoos],” Paleontologists explains that the eggs get their colorful, speckled appearance due to mineral
deposits in the stream that cut through the sedimentary rock. “The eggs’ cracks are the result of differential weathering—mudstone weathers faster than other sediments, causing the formations to crack.”