Bright white dunes formed and polished to sell up nicely rounded, stretching as the eye can see at White Sands. But here is unusual sand, not quartz, but the plaster. White Sands is the most impressive cast of world desert. Covering about 780 km, flat stretches of the valley bottom Tuloasa of New Mexico, much of it being declared a national monument in 1933.
Gypsum is a mineral used in cement and plaster found in thick layers in the mountains around White Sands. While erosion caused by centuries of rain and melting snow has worn rock fragments up to Lake Lucero, located in the lower part of the basin, where they were mixed with water that seeps underground. Sun and wind cause water to evaporate, forming a blanket of dry plaster, which winds a finely crushed, then carried to the dunes that can reach and 30m high. This barren landscape under the blue sky and dazzling sun reminds ruthless wild west, and after all the Rio Grande is not far. Mescalero Apasii come here to collect salt from the alkaline stretches, sometimes wax can be seen in their camps, warmed and wet plaster hardened rain to take different forms.
Few large animals venture into the desert white and least food is not to find room adaposeasca deadly heat of midday. Popandaul sands penttru thrive here as it buries itself in sand, ducking into heat.
Unlike the old pioneers who brave heat and sandstorms on foot or horseback, visitors today can run on the white sands of a road signposted. Sandstorms sometimes slow traffic and moving dunes can bury the road.
