Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area, New Mexico

© Ian Shive/Tandem Stills + Motio

Transformed by time. Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, New Mexico, USA

Time is the great transformer, changing the world and all of us. For instance, this New Mexico badland—the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness—was once a lush, tropical forest. Nearly 70 million years ago, instead of twisted terrains and towering spires, this place was home to an array of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs, including armoured ankylosaurs, duck-billed hadrosaurs and mighty Tyrannosaurs. Today, the area is filled with wonders of a different kind, rock formations that look more like sculptures than natural phenomena. Bisti/De-Na-Zin is named after Navajo words: Bisti means 'among the adobe formations,' and De-Na-Zin comes from nearby rock carvings of a 'standing crane.' Visitors to the Four Corners region shouldn't miss out on this otherworldly landscape of shale and sandstone.