#gypsum sand

[lockvogel]

Have a great weekend, everyone 😊!

Sunset in White Sands National Park, New Mexico

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

"It's hopeless! Every man who has gone in is either too large to fit down the squeeze or they completely lose their nerve and turn tail!"

"Don't despair, we'll get him out. We just need someone small, tough, and with no sense of self preservation."

A caver is stuck down a gypsum cave and has sparked a media frenzy. Tintin's editor sends him to America to get in on the story, but Tintin quickly discovers that while the attention the story garnered might have sent more help the caver's way, the disruptive crowds, moneyed interests and media circus might have only aided the cave's endeavour in holding its prisoner captive.

[desert-love]

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Yesterday, while my cockatiels were figuring out the mechanism that unlocks their cage door, I managed to bring a cousin of Secernosaurus to a certain freaky kind of desert…

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Photo: Mitch Warnick (2022)

* * * *

Rising from the heart of the Tularosa Basin is one of the world's great natural wonders — the glistening white sands of New Mexico. U.S. Department of the Interior: At White Sands National Park, great wave-like gypsum dunes cover nearly 300 square miles of desert. The sand is soft and cool under your feet and provides a beautiful contrast to the bright blue sky. The dunes are ever-changing, growing, cresting, but constantly advancing. One of the best ways to experience the park is sand sledding, a popular activity and great fun for children and adults alike.

[Scott Horton]

* * * *

“Despair is paralysis. It robs us of agency. It blinds us to our own power and the power of the earth… Restoration is a powerful antidote to despair. Restoration offers concrete means by which humans can once again enter into positive, creative relationship with the more-than-human world, meeting responsibilities that are simultaneously material and spiritual. ... Restoration is imperative for healing the earth, but reciprocity is imperative for long-lasting, successful restoration. Like other mindful practices, ecological restoration can be viewed as an act of reciprocity in which humans exercise their caregiving responsibility for the ecosystems that sustain them. We restore the land, and the land restores us.”

― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

[thorsenmark]

Any Excuse to Visit White Sands National Park by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: A lone yucca plant I came across while walking the Dune Life Nature Trail in White Sands National Park. I decided to take advantage of the open area around that yucca plant to more highlight it with the white sands present.

[bingwallpaper]

White Sands National Park, New Mexico, USA

If today's photo evokes some chilly feelings inside of you, surprise! That's not snow, but part of the largest gypsum dune field on the planet. We're at White Sands National Park in New Mexico, which was first established as a monument and then became a national park in 2019. The National Park is named as such due to the abundance of gypsum that has worn off the surrounding mountains. Roughly 4,082,331,330 metric tons of gypsum sand has massed in the Tularosa Basin over the past 12,000 years, having worn off the surrounding mountains. Thousands of species live in the park, many of which have evolved to have white colouration, allowing them to blend into the environment.

[loverofpiggies]

Hi! Been a while since I've been on tumblr. Super happy to see you get back into comic making!! Could you describe the world of The Vulture? I wanna see if I can convert an old OC to fit the world (as a corrupter-master pair) but I have NO idea what would need to change about them (They're from a fantasy world that got blown up and now live on an asteroid in space. I imagine a lot would have to change)

Well hi there!!! Firstly thank you SO much, I'm so glad to be back making comics too!!!

Now I've been brainstorming a lot about the Corrupters, and I technically have two separate paths I'm considering for them. Right now most of them are still a mystery, besides the fact that Corrupters were created by one of the gods of this world. I think I also have it ironed out, that they're also all made from gypsum sand, which is why their skin is pure white. I'm taking a lot of inspiration from New Mexico landscapes for the story, so the world they inhabit is essentially a dying desert/mesa biome world. (Google White Sands National Park to check out gypsum sand dunes, they're *awesome*)

What powers each Corrupter is capable of, I'm not completely certain either. I'm not sure whether they should all have powers extremely similar to Mirror, or extremely different from him. I know for a fact if a Corrupter finds a way to break their chains and become free, or if a Corrupter becomes too powerful, they can gain wildly different abilities, on top of their bodies just sort of changing. Almost becoming sorta slenderman esque. Supertall doll-like monstrosities just sounds creepy and fun to draw. Kinda like the doll devil from chainsaw man, since the Corrupters are also sorta supposed to emulate antique porcelain dolls, too.

The world is also a very religious one, where the gods directly intervene in people's lives, and reincarnation is a fact of life. Right now I'm playing with the idea that becoming a Corrupter is a punishment for a soul that was cruel or violent in their past life. The god doing this particular punishment reincarnation might also just, pick a soul they think would be interesting as a Corrupter as well. Sometimes Corrupters remember their past lives, sometimes they don't.

Remember this is all SUPER early brainstorming still so this can all still change!! But I suspect the gypsum sand, and doll devil nightmare fuel ideas are probably sticking until the end.

[theoldbone]

Part 2 of the UV reactives

Chkalovite, Tugtupite, Kvanefjeld, Greenland, photo by Daniel Montero

Ussingite, Sodalite, Leucophanite, Tugtupite, Tunulliarfik Fjord, Greenland, photo by Daniel Montero

Calcite, Fluorite, Willemnite, Aragonite, Purple Passion Mine, USA, photo by Daniel Montero

Calcite, Potosi Mine, Mexico, photo by Rob Lavinsky

Quartz, Opal, Montana Aserrada, Spain, photo by Volker Betz

Calcite, Fluorite, Pure Potential Mine, USA, Photo by Christopher Clemens

Petroleum, Quartz, Pakistan, photo by Harald K Andersen

Rabbittite, Barbora Adit, Czech Republic, photo by Charles D Young

Gypsum, Shelford Sand Pit, UK, photo by Kaegen Lau

Petrified Wood, CA, USA, photo by Nicholas Rondilone

Plumbogummite, Pyromorphite, Yangshuo Mine, China, photo by Christopher Clemens

[lockvogel]

Sunset in White Sands National Park

New Mexico

Have a great weekend, everyone 😊!

[emilybeemartin]

Inktober Days 13-15

Day 13: "Rise"

Rangers sometimes talk about their “heart parks”—the intimately special ones that make us go dreamy-eyed and nostalgic. Grand Teton is my heart park. During undergrad, I was going through a rough patch, missing my backcountry work in New Mexico and feeling out of place at Clemson. I told my friend that I “just wanted to go somewhere.” He asked if I wanted to go for a walk. I told him no, I’d like to go to the Grand Tetons. I don’t know why I decided on that particular place in that moment—I’d never been there and had only ever seen photos of the famous mountain group. But my friend said sure, we could go to the Grand Tetons. He proceeded to lead me outside student housing, checked the cardinal directions in the sky, and struck off northwest. I followed him. We walked around campus for hours that night, talking about a hundred different things. It was the first time after returning from New Mexico that I’d felt really heard, really understood, really happy.

A few months later, that friend became my boyfriend, and a few years later, that boyfriend became my husband. There was no question about where we would honeymoon. We went to Grand Teton.

Day 14: "Castle"

I’ve been struggling with what to say about Mesa Verde, because this site was so incredible to visit that I almost can’t put it to words. I experienced it while conducting my master’s research between stops in Navajo National Monument and Chaco Canyon. Visiting these cultural sites, tied together by sociopolitical events and natural disasters over the span of centuries, drove home how vast the network of humanity was in the Ancestral Puebloan era. These places were huge hubs of activity and massive feats of architecture—not castles, but communities humming with life, love, loss, struggle, wealth, and beauty.

Mesa Verde was also the only place I saw a ranger bring an audience to tears with the emotion in his program. I audited over two hundred interpretive programs that summer, but I remember lowering my clipboard during this particular tour of Cliff Palace, in awe of how powerfully the ranger was able to connect visitors with his own familial ties to the Ancestral Puebloans who had lived there so long ago. The goal of interpretation is to facilitate a meaningful connection between the visitor and the resource, but never have I ever seen anyone do it so profoundly as that ranger in Mesa Verde, 2011.

Day 15: "Dagger"

White Sands preserves practically the entire span of human history, from fragments of ancient blades up to the space shuttle and missile launches. But it's the beginning of that timeline that draws me toward this gleaming gypsum dunefield.

I remember where I was when the news dropped—in the Apgar ranger office with a handful of other Glacier rangers. I was working on my hunting and gathering program, where I discussed old facts about projectile points and atlatls, but I stopped when another ranger swore in shock. An email had come through to our NPS accounts with new research out of White Sands. Human footprints preserved in the ancient sediment had been dated--- not to the 13-16 thousand years old we typically associated with the earliest humans in the Americas, but to 23 THOUSAND YEARS OLD. In one short email, our whole office's reckoning of human history almost doubled. Our minds were blown. We celebrated like a bunch of lads after a World Cup win. This world that we walk! Footsteps over footsteps over footsteps! What a privilege.

[heavenlybackside]

Experience the serene and otherworldly beauty of White Sands National Park in New Mexico, USA 🇺🇸. The pristine white gypsum dunes stretch endlessly under a vast sky, creating a stark yet stunning contrast. Delicate ripples in the sand and resilient desert flora add to the ethereal landscape, inviting you to explore this unique natural wonder.

[beautifulmars]

HiPOD: A Window into the Past

The layered sedimentary deposits inside the giant canyons of Mars have puzzled scientists for decades. These light toned deposits have fine, horizontal laminations that are unlike the rugged rim rock of the Valles Marineris.

Various ideas for the origin of the layered sediments have suggested lake deposits, wind blown dust and sand, or volcanic materials that erupted after the canyon was formed, and possibly filled with water.

One particular layered deposit, called Ceti Mensa, attracted attention because its deep red color in images collected by the Viking Orbiter mission during the 1970s. Located in west Candor Chasma in the north of the Valles Marineris, Ceti Mensa is an undulating plateau that rises 3 kilometers above the canyon floor and is bounded by steep scarps up to 1.5 kilometers in height. Deep red hues are on the west-facing scarp in particular. The red tint may be due to the presence of crystalline ferric oxide, suggesting that the material may have been exposed to heat or water, or both.

Spectral measurements by the Mars Express OMEGA and MRO CRISM instruments confirm the presence of hydrated sulfate salts, such as gypsum and kieserite . These minerals are important for two reasons. On Earth, they typically form in wet environments, suggesting that the deposits in Ceti Mensa may have formed under water. On Mars, these deposits could be valuable to future Martian colonists as fertilizer for growing crops.

In a view of the colorful west-facing scarp of Ceti Mensa, we see the interior layers of the deposit, giving us a window into the past history of the sediments as they accumulated over time. We also see layers that were previously too small to view, and a surface that is thoroughly fractured, eroded into knobs, and partially covered by young dark sand dunes. (Enhanced color cutout is less than 1 km across.

ID: ESP_051841_1750 date: 17 August 2017 altitude: 265 km

NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

[contentloadingandstuff]

Dark Days - Yoimiya x Male!Reader

A/N: Angst is back on the menu! Seriously though, this might be one of the angstiest things to ever appear on the blog. CW: Modern AU, reader death, swearing, war-time violence. I'll leave it at that, but do know that it's heavy stuff, even if non-graphic in nature.

You place your feet one after the other. The gypsum and sand crunches under your feet as you make your way to the gray, damaged concrete wall of some unrecognizable building. If it was a shop, the storefront must have broken, just as every bit of glass inside, currently in the form of crystal shards littering the street. 

Slowly making your way to the edge of the wall, you take a deep breath. You stick your head out slowly from behind the corner. The view in front of you would be very frightening just a few months ago, but now it has been woven into your daily life. The street was filled with rubble - smaller or larger chunks of stone and concrete, ripped out of various buildings but the explosions of rockets were scattered everywhere. A small tree, once standing proudly in a walkway flower pot, has been uprooted and thrown several meters away. The burnt car to your left, stripped of wheels and even the interior seats, completed the image of misery. 

Your eyes dart across the windows and roofs surrounding the small, plaza-like area. Much to your relief, they don't spot as much as a patch of green uniform anywhere in sight. You turn around and speak out in a restrained voice. 

“I don't see anything. I think we can go.”

Yoimiya nods and gets out from behind the ruin wall. She steps hastily over the rebar and concrete of the structure, the wind having already painted her delicate face with ash and plaster. Her hair is messy, tied in a makeshift ponytail that barely contained her dirty mane. The bags under her eyes speak of the many sleepless nights she had endured, of the hours spent in the basement and of the stress. The same stress that has soured her resting smile into nothing but a blank line of cracked lips. 

She takes her spot behind you. You pat her shoulder, making sure she stays where she is supposed to. Another deep breath. You move out from behind your cover and begin nervously jogging to the destroyed interior of the shop. You can hear her footsteps behind you. 

Your eyes glance nervously at the paneless windows of the buildings staring down at you. It's alright, you tell yourself. Nobody would be watching this random street. There hasn't been a single firefight here since two days ago, nor did you see a single team of soldiers - friendly or otherwise - moving across. And if there would be someone, they would certainly hold their fire. You're not armed, you're not wearing camo, you're clearly civilians. 

Somehow this doesn't give you any comfort. You glance back at Yoimiya, who is hopping across the street, carefully glancing around. She's keeping her distance, just as you instructed her to, and this eases your mind. She's with you. She's going nowhere where you aren't. She is safely behind you, and if someone starts shooting, you'll be the one to take the hits. 

It's your obligation to protect her. 

You quickly step over the shop's missing display, pushing apart the cheaply made, wooden stands that once housed clothes and handbags. They have been either secured by the owner or just looted by the soldiers, maybe even the people passing by. You smirk to yourself. If the electronics's shop wasn't burnt by napalm, you might have snatched yourself a nice console. Well, you'll be lucky to even survive this ordeal. 

The interior is just as you pictured it - empty, with broken furniture scattered around. The store is empty, obviously, but you notice a set of tiled stairs leading to the second floor. After a quick look to make sure Yoimiya is following you, you start ascending the steps. 

A dull stream of light is cast on concrete through a small window overlooking the entryway. You glance at it. The glass is gone, as customary for the city of today. You turn your eyes back towards your destination and freeze. 

Silence falls in the room as you remain motionless. Before you is a body, clad in anachronistic, green camo. Both the colors of the clothes and the stain of dark, dried blood underneath contrast with the ever present dust and monotony of the ruins. His rifle is still in his hand, but there aren't any shells around. He lies face down, but his neck is visible just enough for the paleness of his skin to indicate he hasn't died recently. 

“What's going on?” Yoimiya whispers, alarmed. “What do you see?”

You shake your head sideways. “Nothing. There's a body… It's one of ours.” A brief look at his arm confirms this - the Inazuman flag patch is attached to the velcro area of his uniform. 

His backpack is gone, but his combat straps are still there, holding up pockets likely filled with first aid supplies or snacks. Maybe his canteen is still intact, you hope. 

“I’ll check the body. Stay on the lookout, Yoi.” You turn around and place a hand on her shoulder. Your eyes do their best to cover your nervousness. “Can you do that for me?”

She nods. “Okay. Just… Just please be careful. Please.” 

You wink at her pleading eyes, making a small smirk find its way to her face. “I promise.” 

You turn back to the second floor. Just a few steps and you'll be in front of the window the man was shot from. Judging by how old the body looks, it doesn't seem like the enemy is around anymore. You muster up the courage and continue your ascent, moving almost prone to keep yourself low. Your heart is beating loudly in your ears with each traveled meter, still going as you get down on one knee and lean over the body. The body doesn't reek of decay, at least not yet. 

The nature of what you're about to do sickens you. 

You pull your sleeves over your hands. There was no time to think of morality now, especially that your supplies were running low. There wasn't a chance to evacuate either now that fighting has gone into full swing in the city. 

Wasting no time, you get to investigating his equipment. You quickly locate a particularly stuffed pocket, opening it and, to your delight, finding a bright red pack with a white cross inside. Moments later his canteen is uncovered, filled to the brim with fresh water. What's even better - amongst his documents in the inner pockets of his vest you find a small, stainless steel flask. 

You open it and wipe the dust and speckles of blood with your sleeve, hopes growing. You put the metal to your lips and take a small swing. Alcohol burns your tongue oh so pleasantly. It has been a fair few days since you had even this simple pleasure. Anything to break the monotony of water and old juice was very welcome. 

You smile. Such a little thing, and just how much happiness it can bring! 

Overcome with excitement, you straighten out. 

Before you can turn around and tell Yoimiya about your discovery, let alone blink, your world goes dark. 

A gunshot rings out and before Yoimiya’s very eyes you fall to the ground. 

“Y/N!” 

She dashes forward but her shoe catches on some rubble. Yoimiya faceplants into the floor just in time to avoid another bullet, this one directed her way. She recovers and starts crawling towards you. Her hands latch onto your ankle and with all the strength pulls your body towards her. The crimson that drags behind you is sickening. 

As soon as you're out of the sniper's line of sight, she throws herself at you with desperation in her every movement. She cups your cheeks, already stained red with the blood pouring from your mouth. 

“No no no no, baby, please, please you'll be alright okay?” She rips your blood soaked shirt open, revealing a large wound near the middle of your chest. “Please, please just talk to me!”

She throws down her backpack and pulls out the small medkit. With shaking, red fingers she breaks it open and rummages for the gauze. She grabs a fistful of it and turns back to you. Yoimiya forces the bindings into the wound, hoping to stop the blood from pouring out. More and more of it is pushed deep into your wound, but it does nothing to help. Tears gather in her eyes, but her will powers through. She can still save you. She still can. You'll be okay. 

“Talk to me, please!” 

She looks into your eyes and finds them wide open. Unblinking. Frozen. 

Lifeless. 

Her movements grow weak as the realization falls upon her. 

“No… No…” 

She wraps her arms around your lukewarm body and sobs softly. 

Suddenly, the closer door on the left of the corridor bursts open, two enemy soldiers coming through with their rifles raised. They aim at her. 

“Hands up!” They shout, but she doesn’t obey. She just looks up at them, tears streaming down her face. 

The soldiers glance at your body in her arms. The men lower their weapons. 

She stiffens as they approach her. One of them crouches down to meet her eye-to-eye. His face is obscured by a balaclava, leaving only a small window above his nose to see through. The smell hits her right away, the stench of alcohol and a long-unwashed body. 

“Fufu~ Would you look at that? Our sentry told us he saw the enemy, but we didn't expect to go up against such a pretty thing.” 

Yoimiya swallows a sob and pulls your body closer to hers. Her eyes narrow through the tears. The other soldier audibly hangs up his rifle and walks behind her. She doesn't bother to look. 

“We've been a little cold here you know? A girl to warm us up at night would be quite nice, especially such a young hottie as yourself.” He chuckles to himself. “That won't be a problem now that you're free, right-”

She lashes out with her hand, activating her vision and scorching his face with Pyro. He screams and falls back. Right away, Yoimiya feels a powerful blow on the back of her head. Her eyes fill with black spots as she's grabbed by her hair and violently yanked up. She screams and tries to fight back, but soon feels the business-end of a pistol pressed against her back. 

The wounded soldier rises up, covering his burnt face with his other hands. He growls. “You fucking bitch.” 

Yoimiya’s chin is grabbed by the man, hard. She whines in pain as her whole head is forced to face the man. The fire revealed his face. He is no older than herself. 

“I wanted to be nice to you, we could have had a nice night, but you fucking spoiled it. We'll fuck you dead, like a street whore.” 

Yoimiya spits in his face. Her head throws back as she receives a powerful strike across her cheek. She can feel a tooth has broken loose. She is hoisted up and despite her best efforts, her resistance is fruitless. They drag her towards the room they came out of. Her hands grasp the door frame, but a punch easily breaks her grip. 

Yoimiya sobs. 

Before the door closes, the last thing she can see is your lifeless eyes.

Thank you for reading.

[thorsenmark]

I Must Be Gone: There Is a Path Forward for Me to Travel (Guadalupe Mountains National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: While walking a traveled hiking path in the Salt Basin Dunes of Guadalupe Mountains National Park and a view looking to the northwest. My thinking in composing this image was to angle my Nikon SLR camera slightly downward from the high ground I was on and create a sweeping view across this desert and national park landscape. A little bit of blue skies above the horizon would be present in the upper portion of the image.

[rjzimmerman]

Good story from Yale Environment 360, without a paywall (I think), about beavers, public land, wildfires, endangered species, the largest beaver dam in the world, the degradation of that land and the large pond behind the dam due to the tar sands mining activity in the vicinity. In other words, a microcosm of all the bad stuff and good stuff intersecting in one place in Canada. Excerpt from this story:

Wood Buffalo National Park, the largest national park in Canada, covers an area the size of Switzerland and stretches from Northern Alberta into the Northwest Territories. Only one road enters it from Alberta, and one from the NWT. If not for people observing it from airplanes and helicopters, and satellites photographing it, little would be known about big parts of it. The park is a variety of landscapes — boreal swamps, fens, bogs, black spruce forests, salt flats, gypsum karst, permafrost islands, and prairies that extend the continent’s central plains to their northern limit. The wood buffalo in the park’s name are bison related to the Great Plains bison. In this remoteness, the buffalo descend from the original population, and the wolves that prey on them are also the wild originals. Millions of birds summer and breed here. The park holds one of the last remaining breeding grounds of the whooping crane.

Other superlatives and near-superlatives: the delta in the park’s southeast where the Peace River and the Athabasca River come together is one of the largest freshwater deltas in the world; last summer, some of Canada’s largest forest fires burned in the park and around it; and — just inside the park’s southern border — is the largest beaver dam in the world.

The dam is about a half-mile long and in the shape of an arc made of connected arcs, like a recurve bow. The media has known about it for 16 years, and in that time no bigger beaver dam has come to light, so it’s still known as the biggest, and scientists believe it almost certainly is. Animal technology created it, but human technology revealed it.

Many of the beavers that have reestablished themselves globally are descended from beavers that were planted by wildlife biologists. The thriving beaver population of Tierra del Fuego (another place Thie has studied) is descended from beavers brought to Argentina from Canada’s Saskatchewan River, who are themselves scions of beavers transplanted from upstate New York. No reintroduction of beavers was done in Wood Buffalo Park. Thie believes that the beavers who built the dam are of original stock. Like the wood buffalo and the wolves, they were too remote to be wiped out.

The park is suffering the worst drought in its history. Flows are down by half in many places, owing to climate change, water diversion, poor seasonal snowpack, and dams on the Peace River, upstream in British Columbia. A danger that seems inescapable comes from the oil sands that are being mined for crude-oil-containing bitumen, and from tailing ponds that hold trillions of liters of mine-contaminated water. The ponds are near the banks of the Athabasca River, just upstream from the park boundary. They are fatal to birds that land on them. Given the direction that water flows, conservationists and native people fear the tailings will pollute the park eventually. Toxic chemicals have already been found in McClelland Lake, just southeast of the park. Locals stopped taking their drinking water from the lake years ago.

Gillian Chow-Fraser, the boreal program manager for the Northern Alberta chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, in Edmonton, travels in the park often by helicopter, canoe, and foot. She has described the park’s environment as “super degraded.” When I spoke with her by phone not long ago, she talked about a recent tailing basin leak that was not reported to the First Nations downstream of it for nine months. In places that used to flood regularly but now don’t, the land is drying out and vegetation disappearing. Though she crisscrosses the park, she has never seen the world’s largest beaver dam, but she’s grateful that it’s there and bringing the park attention.