A national monument until 2019, White Sands National Park is home to the largest gypsum dune field in the ... once underwater of the 1,600-square-mile Lake Otero, which dried up 10,000 years ...

Gypsum is a common mineral in ... environment” at 100% humidity. The dunes at White Sands likely began to form 7,000 to 10,000 years ago as Lake Otero began to dry up, according to the park ...

Because gypsum ... sand. The entire dune field is a massive 275 square miles (by comparison, the second-largest gypsum dune field in the world, Cuatro Ciénegas in Mexico, is only 8 square miles).

White Sands National Monument protects a large part of this ... The rain and snow that washed down the mountains into Lake Otero carried gypsum with it. Later, Lake Otero almost completely dried up.

Because gypsum ... sand. The entire dune field is a massive 275 square miles (by comparison, the second-largest gypsum dune field in the world, Cuatro Ciénegas in Mexico, is only 8 square miles).

Park ranger Kelly Carroll said don't be fooled: White Sands is more than ... That's because beneath the gypsum basin lies a high water table, a giant underground lake. We found water about a ...

Here, in White Sands National Park, the world’s largest gypsum dunes abut the dried-up bed of prehistoric Lake Otero, which once covered 1,600 square miles. In the summer, park temperatures can ...

The dunes, which are made of super-soft gypsum sand ... remnants of Lake Otero. (Don't let the word "flat" fool you.) For a truly unique experience, pick up a plastic sled at the White Sands ...

How long have humans lived on the American continent? For decades, one prevailing answer was perhaps 14,000 years, based largely on the age of early human stone tools known as Clovis points, first ...