White Sans, New Mexico (USA)

White Sans, New Mexico (USA)

The Tularosa Basin in the northern Chihuahuan Desert is a mountain-ringed valley encompassing one of the world's great natural wonders -- the glistening white sands of New Mexico. Here, giant, wave-like dunes of gypsum sand move across 275 square miles of desert creating 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