Is Part of Yellowstone Stuck in South Dakota?

I know what you're thinking. "Yellowstone National Park and South Dakota are nowhere near each other, you buffoon!". And you're absolutely right! Yellowstone is roughly 396 miles (or around 7 hours in a car) from the South Dakota border, making it a significant journey.

However, some have argued that a piece of Yellowstone exists in the Badlands National Park. But how could this be?

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The Badlands Could Be The Key To Unlocking This Mystery

According to the National Park Service, the Badlands in Western South Dakota were created between 75 and 26 million years ago. They're primarily made of sand, silt, clay, and also volcanic ash.

Much of this volcanic ash comes from the Great Basin, a geographic area within which the states of Utah and Nevada lie today. However, there is some evidence that shows that the Yellowstone Super Volcano was geologically active around that time and deposited some of its volcanic ash in what is now Badlands National Park.

The evidence for this is most pronounced in the Brule Formation of the Badlands National Park. Take a look at what the National Park Service History Website has to say:

The overlying Brule Formation, which is generally thicker in Badlands National Park than the Chadron, is comprised of the lower Scenic and upper Poleslide Members. Together these have a maximum thickness of circa 120 m and are comprised of mudstones, claystones, shales, sandstones, conglomerates, and volcanic ash. Ash derived from the Yellowstone National Park region is a common feature of the Poleslide Member (Clark et al. 1967). In portions of Badlands National Park, the Brule Formation is overlain by generally fine-grained and weakly cemented sediments of the late Oligocene Arikaree Group. The contact between the Sharps Formation of the Arikaree Group and underlying Brule Formation is marked by a distinctive bed of volcanic ash, known as the Rockyford Ash.

-National Park Service History Website

So, the next time you feel like taking a road trip to Yellowstone, just head into the Badlands. Same thing, right?

Story Sources: National Park Service History Website, National Park Service Website