The Badlands are a mountain range in

Riverside County Riverside County is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, its population was 2,418,185, making it the fourth-most populous county in California and the 10th-most populous in the Unit ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. They are also known as the San Timoteo Badlands. The range trend northwest–southeast with the

San Jacinto Valley The San Jacinto Valley is a valley located in Riverside County, California, Riverside County, in Southern California, in the Inland Empire. The valley is located at the base of the San Jacinto Mountains in the east and Santa Rosa Hills (Riverside ...

to the southwest, the

San Timoteo Canyon San Timoteo Canyon is a river valley canyon southeast of Redlands, in the far northwestern foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains in the Inland Empire region of Southern California. Geography The canyon runs from its southern inflow mouth in ...

to the northeast and the

San Jacinto Mountains The San Jacinto Mountains ()Munro, P., et al. ''A Mojave Dictionary''. Los Angeles: UCLA. 1992. are a mountain range in Riverside County, California, Riverside County, located east of Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles in southern California i ...

to the east. These mountains separate the cities of Beaumont and Moreno Valley. The mountains are crossed by

California State Route 60 State Route 60 (SR 60) is an east–west state highway in the U.S. state of California. It serves the cities and communities on the eastern side of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and runs along the south side of the San Gabriel Valley. I ...

California State Route 79 State Route 79 (SR 79) is an approximately north-south state highway in the U.S. state of California. The highway's southern terminus is at Interstate 8 (I-8) at the Descanso, California, Descanso Junction in San Diego County, Califor ...

, and a handful of smaller roads.

Fossil excavations

The San Timoteo Badlands were excavated under by a team sponsored by

Childs Frick Childs Frick (March 12, 1883 - May 8, 1965) was an American vertebrate paleontologist. He was a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History and a major benefactor of its Department of Paleontology, which in 1916 began a long partnership wi ...

from 1916 to 1921. Comprising both the Mt. Eden Formation and the

San Timoteo Formation The San Timoteo Formation, also called the San Timoteo Beds, is a geologic formation in California. History Part of the wider San Timoteo Badlands, San Timoteo Formation was initially excavated in San Timoteo Canyon under by a team sponsored ...

, fossils from the

Late Miocene The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million ye ...

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58early Pleistocene The Early Pleistocene is an unofficial epoch (geology), sub-epoch in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, representing the earliest division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently esti ...

have been recovered from several sites across the Badlands.

References

Mountain ranges of Riverside County, California Mountain ranges of Southern California {{RiversideCountyCA-geo-stub