White Sands National Park, New Mexico, USAi

Regional Level Types
White Sands National Park	National Monument
New Mexico	State
USA	Country

This page is currently not sponsored. Click here to sponsor this page.

PhotosSearchMineralogy

Large sand dunes composed of gypsum.
A National Monument created in 1933 that preserves a rare gypsum sand dune field in the Tularosa Basin known as the White Sands area. On Friday, December 20, 2019, President Donald J. Trump signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020, which includes a provision that re-designates White Sands National Monument as White Sands National Park, making it the 62nd designated national park in the National Park System. There are 275 total square miles of dune fields in the basin (the Earth's largest gypsum dune field), with 115 square miles (about 40%) in the Monument. The remainder is on military land (White Sands Missile Range); the western section of the Monument is shared with the Range and is called the "zone of co-operative use". It includes the Lake Lucero area, source of the dune field, which is not normally open to the public but can be visited on NPS ranger-led tours.

Though some dynamic areas move up to 30 feet per year, much of the dunes are largely static because, unlike quartz sand, rain dissolves a bit of the gypsum and redeposits it deeper in the dunes, partially cementing the sand grains. This also makes them easier to walk on. Because the gypsum is softer than quartz the dunes have a "softer" tactile feel than quartz dunes and they feel thermally cooler than quartz sand dunes.

Coordinates are for the visitor center.

Mineral List

Mineral list contains entries from the region specified including sub-localities

6 valid minerals.