This time on our way to C-I-U ..we drove through the Cheltenham Badlands ......these are rare and this is one of the best in our area. Badlands is a term geoogic term for an area of soft rock devoid of vegitation and soil cover that has molded into a rolling landscape of rounded hills and gullies. This one has the reddish hue of Queenston Shale and its the iron oxide in the shale that produces this colour. The narrow greenish bands that you can see thorugh the shale are due to the change of red iron oxide brought on by the circulating groundwater. This relativly soft shale is essentially clay and is easily eroded by water.

Who knew eh?