The Sands of Deserts and of Time

The Blip Report for Wednesday, November 27th 2024

I read a story about China’s great efforts to stop ‘desertification’ and ‘sandification’ - “China's desertification control has entered the best period in history, but many breakthroughs are still unknown” written by Sun Guoji, the First Vice-president of China Sand Control (the Chinese government actually has a department in charge of desert and sand control!!!), and that says that China’s deserts have stopped expanding:

“The national desertified land area has changed from an average annual expansion of 10,400 square kilometers at the end of the 20th century to an average annual reduction of 2,424 square kilometers at present;

the sandy land area has changed from an average annual expansion of 3,436 square kilometers at the end of the 20th century to an average annual reduction of 1,980 square kilometers at present …”

I guess we could call Mr. Sun the ‘sand whisperer’, but he warns that:

“Sandstorms have no borders … The threat of sandstorms in surrounding areas such as Central Asia and Mongolia always exists. Natural deserts, desertified land, and bare land provide abundant sand sources. Since humans cannot eliminate deserts, they cannot eliminate sandstorms.”

But even though sandstorms can’t be eliminated, he says that preventing and controlling desertification is still ‘an effective means to reduce the frequency and harm of sandstorms’, but that your neighbors need to be part of the plan too, that ‘all parties in the sand source and transit areas need to cooperate with each other’.

“Scientifically understanding sandstorms, promoting cross-border regional governance of sand source areas, everyone participating in desertification prevention and control, respecting and complying with the laws of nature, and giving the greatest consideration to maintaining the health of the ecosystem are the long-term solutions.”

And I read another story about a desert in China - ‘Study reveals more about Taklimakan Desert’, that shows that, as well as studying how to stop desertification, China is also studying the ‘formation and evolution of these deserts’, that:

“Chinese scientists recently discovered that the existing landscape of the Taklimakan Desert in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region began taking shape approximately 300,000 years ago, and speculated that the initial formation of the desert dates back about 1.8 million years ago … [and] that rivers and lakes have not reached the core of the desert, even during warmer and wetter periods over the past 300,000 years.”

And then I read a story about Chinese scientists who are studying the deserts on Mars - “Zhurong data research found that there may have been an ocean on Mars 3.5 billion years ago”, about the data sent back from China’s Mars rover ‘Zhurong’, and that:

“they speculated that Utopia Planitia may have experienced a flood about 3.68 billion years ago, forming shallow and deep sea environments. But this ocean froze in a ‘geologically short time’, forming a coastline and disappeared about 3.42 billion years ago … [and] that Mars may have had a ‘thicker and warmer’ atmosphere earlier in its history.”

China’s next mission to Mars, that plans to collect samples and bring them back to Earth, is scheduled to blast off next year!!!

And then I read another story about Mars - “What If We Could Build a Mars Base… Using Mars Itself?”, that Chinese scientists from Xinjiang are making fibers from simulated Martian soil:

“This ‘Martian fiber’, with a tensile strength reaching 1320 MPa and an elastic modulus of 99 GPa, rivals the strength of some high-performance Earth-based materials.  The process involves melting a Martian soil simulant – a material meticulously crafted to mimic the composition of actual Martian regolith – at high temperatures and then spinning it into fibers, much like creating glass fibers from molten glass.”

For those other rock hounds, like me, it’s interesting because:

“This means Martian soil fiber could be an ideal building material for constructing a Martian base. The key to this success lies in the soil’s composition. Rich in silica and iron oxides, the simulant proved surprisingly suitable for fiber production.”

So we could one day be constructing buildings on Mars using materials that we find in the desert there! If only we could do that in earth’s deserts someday.

But then I read another story that brought me back down to earth - “Attacks on ancient church part of a deliberate assault on Gaza’s heritage”, about the cultural heritage sites that are being ruined or destroyed in this war in Gaza:

“The Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius, named after the first bishop of Gaza who is said to be buried in the courtyard, was bombed soon after the Israeli military attacks began in October 2023 … The church dates back to the 5th century and is one of the oldest in the world.”

The author talks about the need to save these priceless structures, that:

“Without action, the sands of time will cover the remnants of these monuments, and future generations will be left to wonder what stories were lost, or, worse, remain in unconscious ignorance that they ever existed.”

Although we’re shrinking the deserts of China, and we’re exploring the deserts of Mars, it seems that we’re deserting the people, and culture, and stories of Gaza.

But it would seem that we can’t act like King Canute, and order the desert to stop. Perhaps the desert is there for some unknown reason, and besides, just ordering it to stop won’t work. As Professor Sun says, maybe we can’t stop the sandstorms, but we can study how these deserts are created, in order to check them and lessen them. And by planting some trees of understanding and some shrubs of compassion, we can build a forest with healthy cultural roots, to prevent this desert from growing. So that those young minds can be protected and won’t have their brains blown full of sand, but instead will have a cultural confidence that can withstand these sands of time.

Have fun. undesertingly.