Prairie in Badlands National Park of South Dakota. Badlands National Park consists of 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires blended with the largest, protected mixed grass prairie in the United States. The park has been shaped by erosion, and is home to many Oligocene fossils.
Flood basalt or basalt plateaus cover a large portion of the earth's surface and generally result from fissure eruptions. Here in Iceland, a rushing stream has exposed the columnar jointing in the basalt.