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White Sands National Park
White Sands National Park is a national park of the United States located in New Mexico and completely surrounded by White Sands Missile Range. The park covers 145,762 acres (227.8 sq mi; 589.9 km2) in the Tularosa Basin, including the southern 41% of a 275 sq mi (710 km2) field of white sand dunes composed of gypsum crystals. This gypsum dunefield is the largest of its kind on Earth, with a depth of about 30 feet (9.1 m), dunes as tall as 60 feet (18 m), and about 4.5 billion short tons (4.1 billion metric tons) of gypsum sand.
Approximately 12,000 years ago, the land within the Tularosa Basin featured large lakes, streams, grasslands, and Ice Age mammals. As the climate warmed, rain and snowmelt dissolved gypsum from the surrounding mountains and carried it into the basin. Further warming and drying caused the lakes to evaporate and form selenite crystals. Strong winds then broke up crystals and transported them eastward. A similar process continues to produce gypsum sand today.
Thousands of species of animal inhabit the park, a large portion of which are invertebrates. Several animal species feature a white or off-white coloration. At least 45 species are endemic, living only in this park, with 40 of them being moth species. The Tularosa Basin has also seen a number of human inhabitants, from Paleo-Indians 12,000 years ago to modern farmers, ranchers, and miners.
White Sands National Park was originally designated White Sands National Monument on January 18, 1933, by President Herbert Hoover. Since 1941, the park has been completely surrounded by the military installations of White Sands Missile Range and Holloman Air Force Base. It was redesignated as a national park by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump on December 20, 2019. It is the most visited NPS site in New Mexico, with about 600,000 visitors each year. The park features a drive from the visitor center to the heart of the dunes, picnic areas, backcountry campground in the dunefield, marked hiking trails, and sledding on the dunes. Ranger-guided orientation and nature walks occur at various times and months throughout the year.
The potentially oldest known human footprints in North America were found at White Sands by researchers who identified approximately 60 fossilized footprints buried in layers of gypsum soil on a large playa in the Tularosa Basin. Multiple human footprints are stratigraphically constrained and bracketed by layers containing seeds of Ruppia cirrhosa that yield calibrated radiocarbon ages between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The present consensus for human arrival into North America is placed at 13–16,000 years ago. Initially, these estimates were questioned by other authors, who suggested that the dating could potentially be erroneus, due to the fact that Ruppia cirrhosa intakes carbon from the water in which it grows rather than the air, which may introduce systematic error making the seeds seem older than they actually are. However, the date was later supported by a variety of methods, including radiocarbon dating of pollen and optically stimulated luminescence dating of quartz grains within the footprint layers. Other tracks are known for extinct megafauna, including ground sloths (likely either Nothrotheriops or Paramylodon) and Columbian mammoths, which appear to be contemporaneous to human footprints.
Paleo-Indians inhabited the shoreline of Lake Otero, a large lake that covered much of the Tularosa Basin. They used stone from the mountains to create projectile points, known as Folsom and Plano points, and attached them to spears for hunting mammoths, camels, ground sloths, and bison. Projectile points and stone tools have been found in the basin associated with ancient shorelines, streams, and hills. As the large ice sheet that capped the North American continent receded, Lake Otero began to evaporate, leaving behind Alkali Flat and Lake Lucero. The grassland died and the basin became increasingly arid, slowly changing into desert scrubland. The megafauna disappeared from the basin leaving behind fossil footprints.
The Archaic people improved upon the hand thrown spear used by Paleo-Indians with the invention of the atlatl. After Lake Otero dried out, wind carried large quantities of gypsum sand up from the basin floor which accumulated into a large dunefield. Archaic people entered the Tularosa Basin about 4,000 years ago, after the dunes had stabilized, possibly attracted by a cereal grass called Indian ricegrass. The first evidence of agriculture is found in the Archaic period. Archaic peoples would tend to wild plants so they would produce in a more reliable manner and in larger quantities than they did naturally. Archaic people started living in small villages throughout the year to tend their fields. Hearth mounds are found within the dunes, which are the remains of prehistoric fires containing charcoal and ash. When gypsum is heated to 300 °F (149 °C) it becomes a plaster that hardens when moisture is added and subsequently evaporates. The plaster cements these hearths in place, preserving them for thousands of years.
The Jornada Mogollon people made pottery, lived in permanent houses, and farmed the Tularosa Basin. Evidence of their prehistoric presence dates back to about 200 CE. The Jornada Mogollon inhabited the basin until about 1350 CE when they moved away, leaving behind puddled adobe structures and pottery sherds.
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White Sands National Park
White Sands National Park is a national park of the United States located in New Mexico and completely surrounded by White Sands Missile Range. The park covers 145,762 acres (227.8 sq mi; 589.9 km2) in the Tularosa Basin, including the southern 41% of a 275 sq mi (710 km2) field of white sand dunes composed of gypsum crystals. This gypsum dunefield is the largest of its kind on Earth, with a depth of about 30 feet (9.1 m), dunes as tall as 60 feet (18 m), and about 4.5 billion short tons (4.1 billion metric tons) of gypsum sand.
Approximately 12,000 years ago, the land within the Tularosa Basin featured large lakes, streams, grasslands, and Ice Age mammals. As the climate warmed, rain and snowmelt dissolved gypsum from the surrounding mountains and carried it into the basin. Further warming and drying caused the lakes to evaporate and form selenite crystals. Strong winds then broke up crystals and transported them eastward. A similar process continues to produce gypsum sand today.
Thousands of species of animal inhabit the park, a large portion of which are invertebrates. Several animal species feature a white or off-white coloration. At least 45 species are endemic, living only in this park, with 40 of them being moth species. The Tularosa Basin has also seen a number of human inhabitants, from Paleo-Indians 12,000 years ago to modern farmers, ranchers, and miners.
White Sands National Park was originally designated White Sands National Monument on January 18, 1933, by President Herbert Hoover. Since 1941, the park has been completely surrounded by the military installations of White Sands Missile Range and Holloman Air Force Base. It was redesignated as a national park by Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump on December 20, 2019. It is the most visited NPS site in New Mexico, with about 600,000 visitors each year. The park features a drive from the visitor center to the heart of the dunes, picnic areas, backcountry campground in the dunefield, marked hiking trails, and sledding on the dunes. Ranger-guided orientation and nature walks occur at various times and months throughout the year.
The potentially oldest known human footprints in North America were found at White Sands by researchers who identified approximately 60 fossilized footprints buried in layers of gypsum soil on a large playa in the Tularosa Basin. Multiple human footprints are stratigraphically constrained and bracketed by layers containing seeds of Ruppia cirrhosa that yield calibrated radiocarbon ages between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The present consensus for human arrival into North America is placed at 13–16,000 years ago. Initially, these estimates were questioned by other authors, who suggested that the dating could potentially be erroneus, due to the fact that Ruppia cirrhosa intakes carbon from the water in which it grows rather than the air, which may introduce systematic error making the seeds seem older than they actually are. However, the date was later supported by a variety of methods, including radiocarbon dating of pollen and optically stimulated luminescence dating of quartz grains within the footprint layers. Other tracks are known for extinct megafauna, including ground sloths (likely either Nothrotheriops or Paramylodon) and Columbian mammoths, which appear to be contemporaneous to human footprints.
Paleo-Indians inhabited the shoreline of Lake Otero, a large lake that covered much of the Tularosa Basin. They used stone from the mountains to create projectile points, known as Folsom and Plano points, and attached them to spears for hunting mammoths, camels, ground sloths, and bison. Projectile points and stone tools have been found in the basin associated with ancient shorelines, streams, and hills. As the large ice sheet that capped the North American continent receded, Lake Otero began to evaporate, leaving behind Alkali Flat and Lake Lucero. The grassland died and the basin became increasingly arid, slowly changing into desert scrubland. The megafauna disappeared from the basin leaving behind fossil footprints.
The Archaic people improved upon the hand thrown spear used by Paleo-Indians with the invention of the atlatl. After Lake Otero dried out, wind carried large quantities of gypsum sand up from the basin floor which accumulated into a large dunefield. Archaic people entered the Tularosa Basin about 4,000 years ago, after the dunes had stabilized, possibly attracted by a cereal grass called Indian ricegrass. The first evidence of agriculture is found in the Archaic period. Archaic peoples would tend to wild plants so they would produce in a more reliable manner and in larger quantities than they did naturally. Archaic people started living in small villages throughout the year to tend their fields. Hearth mounds are found within the dunes, which are the remains of prehistoric fires containing charcoal and ash. When gypsum is heated to 300 °F (149 °C) it becomes a plaster that hardens when moisture is added and subsequently evaporates. The plaster cements these hearths in place, preserving them for thousands of years.
The Jornada Mogollon people made pottery, lived in permanent houses, and farmed the Tularosa Basin. Evidence of their prehistoric presence dates back to about 200 CE. The Jornada Mogollon inhabited the basin until about 1350 CE when they moved away, leaving behind puddled adobe structures and pottery sherds.
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