White River Badlands

The White River Badlands is the term used to describe a unique set of fossil bearing formations distributed across northwestern Nebraska, southwestern South Dakota, eastern Wyoming and northern Denver. Due to water and wind erosion over millions of years these formations are re-exposed and eroding, exposing fossils in various outcrops spread across the four states. The area outlined in blue to the right shows generally the extent of these outcrops. The area in red is where our fossil ranch, the M&M Ranch is located, and where all of our white river fossils are from.

The white river name itself comes from the white river to which a good portion of this area drains into. The badlands themselves are made up of areas of high, highly eroded peaks to areas with small mounds and straight flat collecting areas know as flats. The peaks and mounds are comprised of mostly clay, some areas much softer than others. There are intermittent hard cap bands spread throughout the formations which can be easily seen in the high peaks of our ranch. When dry, the exposed surface appears a drab tan or beige. When wet, these formations come alive with grays, greens, lime greens, browns, whites and sometimes red.

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    Picture from the M&M ranch showing erosion on one of the peaks of exposed Brule formation. Notice the small ledge formed by one of the intermittent rock-hard layers

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    On the M&M Ranch showing some mounded collecting areas with peaks off in the distance. The Brule in the higher areas, Chadron in the lower areas.
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    Picture a day after a light rain showing the colors at this particular location within the white river badlands.

The various formations of the white river badlands deposits where laid down in the late Eocene to early Oligocene. The Chadron formation, an Eocene deposit starts it off at around 40 million years ago during the Chadronian. During this time, giant mammals such as Titanotheres and giant pigs, called Archaeotherium roamed the area. As you progress into the Oligocene portion of the white river badlands you have the Brule formation which started around 35 million years ago. During this time, it is though the area was dryer then the chadronian and the giant Titanotheres were no longer presents. The giant pigs and rhinos and Hyaenodons were far less present if at all.

During the this time the area was most likely flat and covered with wandering rivers, swamps and lakes. Life was flourishing at all levels with animals such as oreodonts, camels, horses, saber cats, dogs, pigs, titanotheres, turtles and tortoises, birds and lizards roaming around. We know these animals existed based on the fossil remains that have been found. I, along with most other collectors, are quite pleased at the sheer abundance of fossils some of these areas put out. It is believed this area was an alluvial flood plain which helped lead to the large number of fossils that can be found. After being deposited and waiting for millions of years the fossils expose and are found by countless hours off walking around surface collecting.

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    Fossil tortoise just exposing itself for the first time in around 30 million years.

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    Oreodont skull ready for the collecting

This set of photos of a tortoise that was found on the M&M Ranch will give you an idea of the process of getting a fossil from the field to display. As you can see in the first photo, only a small portion of the shell of this tortoise was exposed when found. After a bit of digging it was confirmed that it was going to be a nice tortoise and well worth digging out. The fossil was then jacket and removed from the ground. After some prep worked it turned out quite nicely. Odd how the exposed piece when dried turned a whitish color.

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    Tortoise barley exposing itself after millions of years and the same tortoise completely dug out and ready to jacket.

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    Same tortoise top and bottom after prep.

The thing that we love most about the white river badlands is the sheer number of different animals that can be found. Below is a sampling of some of the genus that can be found. This list is in no way exhaustive

White River Badlands Fossils