October, 2004

During October I visited White Sands on the 2nd and the 27th. On the 27th I was with Marcus Williams, a graduate student here at NMSU, to watch the lunar eclipse. Unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures of the eclipse itself.

These pedestals are formed by shrubs binding the sand together. This pedestal lost its shrub. Dawn, 10/2/04.

It was partly cloudy the whole day, allowing me to get a lot of pictures like this of partially lit dunes, 10/2/04. The San Andres are in the background.

Same as above, 10/2/04. I was walking out to the alkali flats.

Same as above, 10/2/04. Now you can see the alkali flats stretching out past the dunes.

The alkali flats on the west edge of White Sands, 10/2/04.

More alkali flats, with pickleweed and salt cedar, 10/2/04. The fall of 2004 was wet enough that there was quite a bit of standing water out in the flats.

Pickleweed in the alkali flats, 10/2/04.

The edge of the dunes, 10/2/04. The little guy at lower left is a young earless lizard, Holbrookia maculata.

There's a lot of sand out here. 10/2/04.

More sand. The area with little shrubs off in the distance is the edge of the alkali flats. 10/2/04.

Have I mentioned there's a lot of sand? 10/2/04.

An interdunal area with vegetation, 10/2/04. The interdunal areas get larger and more vegetated as you move towards the east edge of the dunes. In parts of the central, least stable part of the dunes, the interdunes are just as barren as the dunes.

Another interdunal area, 10/2/04.

A dune with the San Andres in the background, 10/2/04.

Sunset over the San Andres, 10/2/04.

Another sunset, 10/27/04. Between the sunset and the solar eclipse, the moonlit dunes were quite eery; I hope to get pictures of the moonlit dunes at some point.