(rising music)
- [Narrator] This is one of the most unique deserts
in the world.
Not only can its pure white sands be seen
from outer space, but for years,
it's left many scientists with many questions than answers.
Like, why are there these giant, mysterious pedestals
scattered throughout that seem to defy
the laws of physics?
How are there so many diverse animals
seen nowhere else on Earth?
And where did these footprints come from?
Discovered just last year,
they're dated 10,000 years before homo sapiens
even arrived in North America.
(inspiring music)
- We are here in New Mexico, at White Sands National Park,
for Earth Day, as part of Youtube's
Non-Fungilble Planet Campaign to appreciate
the beauty of this thing we call home.
- This is so interesting, everything is so white here,
it's crazy, and just over there,
there was a breakthrough scientists made
that has changed human history forever.
But first, why is there this moonlight,
gorgeous desert in the middle of America?
I know we're in White Sands, 'cause boom, white sand.
300 million years ago, this was the Permian Sea,
full of water, and sharks, and cephalopods, and nautili.
Over millions of years, that water evaporated
and left behind deposits of gypsum.
You can actually see the gypsum in the mountains,
over there yonder, it's the white little streaks.
They're actually not little, they're rather huge,
just far away.
Around 10,000 years ago, and it still happens today,
the rains began washing the gypsum, and other minerals,
off of the mountain to the lowest part of the basin
we're in right now, called Lake Lucero.
But Lake Lucero doesn't actually drain into any ocean.
So, the hot sun and the wind evaporates the water out,
and according to the laws of nature,
the dehydrated gypsum left behind
starts to form selenite crystals,
which jut out all over the lake.
This is a super windy desert area,
which breaks up the soft crystals into shards,
which continue to get whipped around by the wind,
until they become coarse grains of gypsum sand.
So, all these little pieces of white gypsum
have been scratched and whipped together,
that's why they appear white.
And over the last 10,000 years, the whipping of all
of those gypsum selenite crystals into these little
pieces of sand have created these unbelievable dunes.
And as I say this out loud, I'm just like,
"How is this real?"
- Did you think it'd be tough?
- I don't know, I do find that sand is hell to walk on,
and we're on the White Sands National Park,
so I'm not thinking it's gonna be easy.
- [Narrator] But what keeps the white sand
from blowing away across America,
never to be seen again?
Well, there's ground water, 12 to 36 inches
below the surface of the dunes,
and this water helps hold the large dunes in place,
because the water and gypsum mix
to make this plaster-like substance.
The water is essentially just holding onto the sand,
keeping it in place, and making this
the largest white gypsum desert in the world,
which yes, you can see from space.
- Oh, there we go.
- [Crew] Woo.
- You're just pulling the line.
- And on the surface, these dunes are very soft,
but you just have to brush away about an inch or so,
and you'll see it's very hard, it's cool.
- Oh my god, it's so cold.
- It is wet, you can see all the moisture in it.
The dune itself, inside, is hard
because of this water, and that's what holds
the dune in place.
If it was just the soft sand, it would blow away.
- Awesome. - I love this.
I just wanna keep digging.
- [Narrator] The dunes can actually move
up to 38 feet per year, but are ultimately contained
within the boundaries of the aquaphor.
- These tracks behind me are actually from
the dunes moving on.
So, as the wind blows, you can see,
this dune's moved over there,
and it's left in its wake this harder, sort of,
clay-like substance.
And scientists don't know exactly the mechanism
by which it happens, but even though they're
kind of shaped this way, you'd think it's from being pushed,
they believe it's from the tail-end of the dunes
moving that way.
So, these tracks all here are from that dune,
moving that way.
- Sometimes when you're in sand dunes,
you've gotta get from the inter-dunal space
up terrain, you need to keep hiking,
so- - Let's see you go.
- With he thick legs and the buttocks.
- [Cameraman] Oh my god.
- You can walk barefoot, it's kinda
gorgeous for the feetsies.
But it is really unique.
If this was any other desert, it'd be so hot.
- [Cameraman] Literally, it's so nice and cold.
- [Narrator] We'd seen a variety of the smaller pedestals
scattered throughout the park,
but we actually needed to go off the marked trail
to find the huge ones we had read about.
When we saw a truly massive one in the distance,
we had our friends stand on top of the dune
so we could always know how to get back,
as the dry, hot desert can dehydrate you quickly.
And recently, somebody died after getting lost
on this hike, so we stayed close, and within eyesight,
and finally reached the one we were looking for.
- One of the most striking parts about this desert
are these giant pedestal structures.
This one's almost three stories tall,
and it's interesting, 'cause it's this hard structure
in an otherwise soft sand desert.
And for a long time, scientists didn't really understand
what was going on.
But it turns out, it has to do with the way
the sand moves.
As the dunes slowly slide over the landscape,
they often cover the shrubs and plants.
And for many, that simply spells doom, or death.
But for others, they adapt by frantically growing upward,
to get back to the surface, where the sun is,
which is great for a while.
The problem for plants, like the soap tree yucca,
which you can see all around the desert
is that when the dune continues to move on,
the yucca is no longer able to support such a tall stalk,
and it falls over and dies.
The skunkbush sumac, on the other hand,
grows tall to reach the surface, but has roots
that pull water into the gypsum.
This gypsum then turns into a hard, plater-like substance
and when the dune moves on, the hardened pedestal stays put,
supporting the plant, which continues to live on top of it.
Like, it's really hard, 'cause the roots have
brought up the water.
Even though it's still sand, you can break it apart
if you need to, and it becomes softer again.
Modern art from nature, the MOFN.
While at the pedestals, I freaked out,
because we were lucky enough to find
the bleached earless lizard.
These exist nowhere else on earth.
- So, that's the bleached earless lizard,
we were told we wouldn't be able to see one,
'cause they're so well camouflaged,
and it's because roadrunners, the birds,
eat these earless lizards.
Outside of this park, they're brown or black,
within it, over 10,000 years, due to mutations
that would be more advantageous when they were lighter,
sort of proliferating over that period of time,
they have now bleached this white color.
It's an amazing example of rapid evolution.
That's super rare to see in nature.
10,000 years for a species of lizard
to change colors like that, to turn white,
is really, really quickly on evolutionary terms.
And essentially, the roadrunners can't see
the white ones as well, so any mutation
that would make an earless lizard more white
would be advantageous.
I'm star-struck by a lizard right now,
it's so frickin' cool.
(upbeat music)
And it's so cute.
You think I could take it home?
No.
- [Narrator] But these lizards aren't
the only uniquely adapted animals to the white sands.
There are sand treader camel crickets,
lightened Apache pocket mice, 40 different species
of white moths, and even sand wolf spiders
much lighter in color than anywhere else on Earth.
- Time to see how much sand's in my shoe.
(wind blows)
(all laugh)
- Here at White Sands, if you happen to be white,
like me, apparently you have to put sunscreen
under your nose, under your chin, under your arms,
because the sun actually gets reflected so well,
off of the sand, a lot of people don't do that,
and they end up getting burnt in all these weird ways.
So, hopefully at the end of this,
I don't look like a weird Canadian flag.
We're at the edge of the dunes right now,
and just behind me are the alkali flats,
where last year, footprints frozen in time
from the ice age proved that humans were living here,
in America, 10,000 years earlier
than we had initially thought.
Before, it was thought that humans came to America
between 13 to 16,000 years ago.
But by studying these footprints at White Sands,
the course of human history has now changed
and we understand that humans were here
22 to 23,000 years ago.
Because these alkali flats are so flat,
and so vast, they go on for so long,
we can study these numerous footprints from giant sloths,
from humans, and understand their behaviors.
How they hunted the giant sloths,
how teenagers were actually looking after the kids,
how the parents' lives were different
than the kids' lives.
It's so fascinating, 'cause we actually can now
understand human behavior from these footprints.
- [Narrator] So, how do scientists know this?
Well, we left footprints behind us
everywhere we went while hiking in the desert in 2022,
and it turns out that humans also left
distinct footprints here around 22,000 years ago.
It happened during an abrupt warming event
that lowered lake levels at the time in a way
that when humans walked over the wet and dry ground,
they left footprints that became preserved
in multiple sediment layers that were dug up by scientists
in the last few years.
Scientists carefully inspected the prints,
and then carbon dated seeds they found
from water-dwelling plants that were also found
around the footprints, to prove the date
that these footprints were from.
And the discovery was mind-blowing,
as it proved that humans were walking around
this part of America 10,000 years earlier
than we had all thought.
In these layers, scientists also found footprints
of the Columbian land mammoth, ground sloths,
and dire wolves, all roaming this land,
along with humans.
The footprints even show human behavior,
some footprints show humans running, even near,
and towards a ground sloth.
Based on studying the ground sloth's tail prints,
it seems the humans were chasing,
and potentially hunting the ground sloth.
As well, based on size, it seems the footprints
are mostly of teenagers and toddlers.
Sometimes the toddler footprints would abruptly disappear,
and the teenage ones would get a little bit deeper,
showing that the teenager had lifted up the toddler
and carried them.
- I can't believe Earth has created this,
I'm so confused where we are.
Like, I don't even know what we're standing on,
it feels like we're on a different planet.
- It truly feels like we are somewhere not on Earth.
- It's so cool.
- Already so beautiful, we can go home, it's amazing.
Thank you so much to YouTube for making all this happen.
- This Earth Day, YouTube will be supporting
the National Parks Foundation so that everyone
can enjoy the iconic, gorgeous landscapes of America.
- Did you know that every American lives
within 100 miles of a National Park?
And with over 400 of them, you might be a lot closer
to the greater outdoors than you realize.
More details about that in the link in the description.
- Thank you for watching, make sure you're subscribed,
we'll see you next week, and happy Earth Day.
(upbeat music)