2013
Most fascinating for me is the very different palette available shooting west as early light casts an orange glow on the gypsum sand, with various pan’s impact on the gypsum and the surrounding grasses.
2011
The White Sands National Monument, located 300 miles south of Santa Fe at the northern end of Mexico’s Chihuahuan Desert, is nestled in the high-desert Tularosa Basin (4,200′ el.). Between the San Andres Mountain Range, to the west, and the Sacramento Mountains to the east, are the astounding white-white wave-like gypsum dunes, that over millions of years have engulfed 275 square miles of desert, comprising the world’s largest gypsum dunefield.
Between enormous upheavals in the Earth’s crust 250 million years ago, followed by the uplift of these mountains 150 million years later, these huge gypsum deposits were exposed. Rainfall and snowmelt then leeched out the gypsum, washing it down the mountainsides, to accumulate in Lake Lucero, the lowest point in the basin. Without outfall drainage, evaporation left behind layers of crystallized gypsum that prevailing southwest winds have carried up the basin, piling them in dunes as high as 50 feet.
Sand dunes are always striking as their organic shapes and patterns constantly change the absorption and reflection of light, but snow-white dunes are even more unique. Unlike most quartz desert sands, glistening white sands are composed of gypsum and calcium sulphate; also, unlike most beaches, white sand is cool to the touch, due to the high rate of evaporation of surface moisture, since the sand reflects rather than absorbs the sun’s rays.
This first series of images were captured shooting west as last light approaches; while in my next blog are of images shooting east, capturing early light. Equally fascinating is how low-angled winter light casts diverse color on the bright white gypsum sand. Shadowed low and flat light creates a bluish cast when shooting west toward last light, while early light casts an orange glow on the gypsum sand.
Looking at a book on Alaskan Totem Poles a few years ago got me thinking that totems were panoramics turned on their end. (more…)
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2011
Situated within New Mexico’s south-central Tularosa Basin are 270 square miles of White Sands’ dunes comprising the world’s largest surface deposit of gypsum. Beginning 100 miles south of Albuquerque and continuing 100 miles further south to El Paso, this basin lies within the Rio Grande Rift zone and the Chihuahuan Desert.
Unlike typical quartz sand, gypsum sands’ high rate of surface moisture evaporation reflects rather than absorbs the sun’s rays, making the grains cool to the touch, while taking on the hues of first and last light.
Two hundred and fifty million years ago, enormous upheavals in the Rio Grande Rift formed mountain ranges on both the east and west edges of the Tularosa Basin that uncovered these gypsum deposits, which over time leached into the basin.
In the dunes foreground, sparse golden grasses glow in contrast to the brilliant white dunes which in turn contrast against the formidable mountains both east and west.
