White Sands National Monument
At the northern end of the
Chihuahuan Desert lies a mountain ringed valley called the Tularosa
Basin. Rising from the heart of this basin is one of the world's great
natural wonders - the glistening white sands of New Mexico. Here, great
wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert
and have created the world's largest gypsum dune field. The brilliant
white dunes are ever changing: growing, cresting, then slumping, but
always advancing. Slowly but relentlessly the sand, driven by strong
southwest winds, covers everything in its path. Within the extremely
harsh environment of the dune field, even plants and animals adapted to
desert conditions struggle to survive. Only a few species of plants
grow rapidly enough to survive burial by moving dunes, but several
types of small animals have evolved a white coloration that camouflages
them in the gypsum sand.White
Sands National Monument preserves a major portion of this gypsum dune
field, along with the plants and animals that have successfully adapted
to this constantly changing environment. The largest pure gypsum dune
field in the world is located at White Sands National Monument in
south-central New Mexico. This region of glistening white dunes is in
the northern end of the Chihuahuan Desert within an
The
remainder is on military land that is not open to the public. This dune
field is very dynamic, with the most active dunes moving to the
northeast at a rate of up to 30 feet per year, while the more stable
areas of sand move very little. The pure gypsum (hydrous calcium
sulfate) that forms these unusual dunes originates in the western
portion of the monument from an ephemeral lake or playa with a very
high mineral content. As the water evaporates (theoretically as much as
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