Millions of years ago, the ancient ocean known as the Western Interior Seaway spread across the heart of North America. When the waters cleared, what was left behind was vast prairie, otherworldly rock formations, and—most importantly—oil shale deposits. As climate scientist David Goodrich journeys by bicycle through the Badlands and Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and across the prairies of the upper Midwest and Canada, he gets a ground-level view of where the tar sands and oil reserves are being opened up at an unprecedented pace. Extraordinary and unregulated, this "black goldrush" is at the heart of the fracking debate, and as Goodrich explains, it is boom and bust in every sense.