White Sands National Park, New Mexico

© Andrea Harrell/Tandem Stills + Motio

White Sands National Park, New Mexico, USA

If today 's photo evokes some chilly feelings inside of you, surprise! That's not snow, but part of the largest gypsum dune field on the planet. We're at White Sands National Park in New Mexico, which was first established as a monument and then became a national park in 2019. The National Park is named as such due to the abundance of gypsum that has worn off the surrounding mountains. Roughly 4,082,331,330 metric tons of gypsum sand has massed in the Tularosa Basin over the past 12,000 years, having worn off the surrounding mountains. Thousands of species live in the park, many of which have evolved to have white colouration, allowing them to blend into the environment.