The Greys: The New Mexico Desert

Long ago, the middle of the North American continent was a treeless prairie covered by tall grasses and roaming buffalo. When European settlers came, they called this area the Great American Desert. Today, this "desert" is covered with fields of wheat, corn, and alfalfa made possible by center-pivot irrigation. My grandfather used to sell center-pivot systems and when my family drove to my grandparent's home in Nebraska, we would count how many "sprinklers" were watering each section of land. At the time, I didn't know that this water was being pumped from somethng called the Ogallala Aquifer, a huge underground water supply. Throughout the years, this aquifer has made the Great American Desert one of the best farming

Nucountry is a medium sized country with twenty one million residents. It is divided into three regions. The northern region of the country is dry and abandoned. The southeastern region has rich soil, with major rivers that flow to the ocean. The southwestern region is also fertile and has valuable natural resources. Nucountry has three types of people. Nupeeple are the largest ethnic group in Nucountry making up seventeen million of the country’s overall population. They live in the southeast and work on farms and businesses in cities and towns. The Apeeple are a small ethnic group, two million reside within Nucountry. They live on the southwest and control the natural resources. The Apeeple have their own language and traditions (differing

Desert Immigrants: The Mexicans of El Paso 1880-1920 analyzes and discusses the Mexican immigrants to El Paso, Texas. The most western city of the vast state of Texas, a city in the edge of the Chihuahuan desert; a place too far away from many regions of the United States, but as Mario García explains a very important city during the development of the western United States. He begins explaining how El Paso’s proximity to different railroads coming from México and the United States converged there, which allowed El Paso to become an “instant city”, as mining, smelting, and ranching came to region. (García 2)

Have you ever wondered how landmarks like the “The Tepees” in the Painted Desert of Arizona came to be? Erosion and weathering are the main culprits behind the creation of these unique and beautiful attractions. The mechanical and chemical procedure that modify objects on Earth’s surface over time are called weathering. Erosion is the method of taking weathered material from one region to another. Weathering is the breaking down of rock, soil, and minerals. Erosion is the development of being eroded by wind, water, or other natural causes. Weathering is grinding out of man-made or natural landforms. Erosion is the weathering out of surface soil and rock worn way through natural causes like water and wind for example.

When thinking of a desert, one would think of a large, dry, and sandy area like the Sahara Desert. The Great Basin Desert is different because it is a cold desert. A cold desert is completely different from the typical desert with average temperatures of 55-57 degrees Fahrenheit in summer, and in winter it averages around 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Cold deserts will normally have much more water. Water is the lifeline of The Great Basin Desert (Pellant), which is a good thing and a bad thing. The term “basin” is used with the meaning no water from the ocean ever reaches this region (National Park Service). Water rights to the Great Basin Desert have been a problem for a long time and with the risk of water loss and risk of losing groundwater.

For this paper water structures and infrastructures were selected as focus points because the longer we wait to fix issues with them, the more expensive it will get, in other words, we are in a race against time. Studying the past it is easy to see how water availability made population explode in an area such as Southern California, where savvy marketing and great politics made it happen. Particularly, for Los Angeles and for the purposes of public narrative, Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert does a great job at understanding and identifying the politics and key figures in getting water to Los Angeles. Great hydrologic structures were created using both manpower and water politics. It is important to state that there are connections between water, politics, environment, and geography when analyzing what the biggest problems involving water structures and infrastructures (Reisner.) We must think of water as both a socio-political issue and a natural resource, whose fate is molded by the understanding of its connectivity to itself, man-made structures, geography, environment, and society. The classes taken in this program have taught us ideals that in order to become a great water resource manager, one must master the political and scientific knowledge to make decisions that are prosperous for society and the environment. Furthermore, one must know the United States’ hydrological history in order to gain manipulation upon the system that makes it both thrive and deteriorate.

In his book, Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Marc Reisner’s main thesis is to show the inefficiency, greed, and inherent difficulty in the American West’s never-ending struggle to turn its unwelcoming desert into a lush garden. One of his main sub-points is that the West is not meant to support millions of people. It has a wide range of geographic challenges throughout the entire region. Its inconsistency and diversity is a primary cause of its water problems. For example, Reisner notes that the West consists of “plains so arid that they could barely support bunchgrass; deserts that were fiercely hot and fiercely cold; streams that flooded a few weeks each year and went dry the rest; forests with trees so large it might take days to bring one down; . . . hail followed by drought followed by hail;” (23).

They do not fully know about the oppression they are under as they have never known anything else. Born and raised under the total influence of their government, they do not know anything outside the treatment they have always been given. Even if the community did know about outside governance forms, they would be focused primarily on surviving, not on rebelling. Oppressive societies such as this one, where careers, thoughts, feelings, and lives are simply assigned, breed fear and complete dependency on the government. Such is the goal of this society; to have complete and total dominance and control over all its subjects, without question or

I am sure that everyone of you have heard about aliens and UFOs. Indeed, we all have heard about the famous case of aliens and UFOs in Roswell, New Mexico. Most people might be interested in the topic of aliens, but I know that the majority of you just think of it as rumours and the existence of them are impossible. Therefore, I am standing here in front all of you to make you change your perspective. I am strongly confident that I have found the evidence of their real existence to convince all of you.

beings in all of the Cerebral Hemisphere. They imprison you in their outpost on the desolate planet Soma, from

The fragile ecological existence of the U.S. Southwest is complicated by the presence of endangered migratory species who naturally move across our borders, including gray wolves and jaguars. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 entrenched social rules regarding immigration and border security installed through the Illegal Immigration Act and Immigrant Responsibility Act. This and the Real ID Act allow border patrol to further diminish chances of survival for endangered species, by granting waivers of the Endangered Species Act and NEPA, in order to secure our borders. This is an analysis of the complex social needs coinciding with decisions regarding border activity along the U.S.-Mexico border, specifically the Arizona portion

The Dust Bowl in the 1930s, took the lives of over seven thousand people throughout the Western United States and parts of Canada (“Dust”). People claimed they could tell where the dust came from by the color of the dust cloud that came through. The dust from Colorado was known to be grey (“Handy”). Almost ninety years later, the Western United States citizens are still affected by droughts today. Not affected directly, the people who live in and near the Colorado Plateau are affected through their water resources. Water is naturally filtered by plant’s roots. Droughts cause plants to dry up and thus they filter less water. With the dominant plants drying up and thinning out, that makes more room for exotic plants to start growing. More and

The Desert Southwest is a very interesting place for non natives. It is a very hot place it can get up to 140 degrees which is normal for the deseret but an night it's a different story it can lower to about 30 degrees that is 2 degrees lower than freezing point. That is like a huge freezer and the sand can get cold under the about 4-5 inches it is also traditional to to speak their language apachean it was mostley spoken by the natives.

The usage of land in the Mojave Desert is negatively affecting the desert as a whole. “Some key species are indicators of the overall ecological health of the region … most of these species continue to decline.” was stated by the mojave defenders. Certain animals such as the Mojave ground squirrel represent the health of our environment, and certain groups are inefficiently using the land of the Mojave Desert. Ultimately, this is leading to a decline in these populations.

The term desert is strongly connected to the image of an extremely harsh environment void of any life. The sand dunes at the Gulf of California would fit this description of a desert biome, but for large parts the Sonoran Desert has a stunning array of different organisms.