One fine afternoon last may, Jayne Belnap drove north out of Moab, Utah, in her beige Lexus SUV when the highway vanished. In an instant, a 100-foot-tall cloud of dust had swallowed up her vehicle. She wanted to brake, but she worried about another car slamming into her from behind. She tried to pull over, but she couldn’t see the shoulder. So Belnap split the difference: “I figured if I just crept slowly enough that I’d eventually get out of there or fall off the road.”

Luckily, the dust storm passed after a few minutes. But Belnap, who works at the U.S. Geological Survey and is the world’s foremost expert on the biological crusts that lock in desert dust, is well aware of the risks these tiny particles pose to people. In the 1990s a ranger at Canyonlands National Park in Moab, where she conducts fieldwork, broke her knee and two vertebrae in a collision caused by a dust storm. Dust affects denizens of the western U.S. in less dramatic ways as well. In the air, it can lead to respiratory problems, whereas dust settling on snowy mountaintops causes spring melts earlier in the season, harming agriculture in dry valleys.

4 Comments

1. 1. Bruce Voigt 05:23 PM 1/6/12

   I discovered the following after I had to start cleaning up after myself (Mother and three Ex wives!)
   
   Experiment #223 --- Take two business cards and collect some dust off the TV or some where you don't regularly clean that you would expect plain old light, float in the air house dust.
   
   With this dust between the cards and rubbing together you will be shocked to find this dust to be gritty and wonder how in the world sand could get on the TV.
   
   Well I'll let you in on a little of Voigt Science, IT GREW THERE!
   
   I discovered that dirt grows and with using common sense figured that knowing spiders use cob webs to feed themselves thought it a good plan to leave them rather than what there eating to be crawling around.

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2. 2. Bruce Voigt 05:26 PM 1/6/12

   Just watched Weird or What on History Television trying to solve the mystery of the Sailing Stones of Death Valley.
   They did not solve this mystery but I have.
   
   Dew is a product of the earth, tiss what gives life to plants and animals of the "dry" desert or you could say-- Dew is baby atmosphere or baby rain, or baby snow or baby fog or baby----
   
   DEW (water) originates from the Earth and its surface and not from the atmosphere as does fog, rain, snow etc.
   
   Black ice is a product of DEW not Atmosphere.
   
   In a nut shell --
   Black ice, is of an immature earth force. (dew)
   Frost, is of a mature earth force. (atmosphere)
   
   Could it be as simple as the likes of black ice to be the reason of Avalanche?
   
   An accumulation of mature frost or snow would be binding and would not easily slide on it's self so I propose that for whatever reason a layer of frozen dew or black ice is laid down and it's this layer that the avalanche people are finding in their snow blocks.
   
   My goodness could it be this frozen dew that moves glaciers or the reason for mud or rock slides (the likes of Franks Slide)!
   
   And yes by golly with black ice and a bit of wind those huge boulders easily meander about the desert of Death Valley.
   

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3. 3. Bruce Voigt 05:32 PM 1/6/12

   A little common sense will have most considering that if said boulder were placed on Black Ice wind could move it. But -- these meandering boulders are not placed on ice and are stationary. So how can ice form between the boulder (glacier) and ground! (easy)
   
   ALL MATTER PRODUCES OXYGEN!
   EXAMPLE:
   You could say, for instance, how in heck could a piece of wood, no longer a live tree, produce oxygen?
   
   The liquid ingredient of water has vacated your two by four. The cells of this dead piece of wood still contain an active water cell nucleus with its orbiting nuclei. This cell nucleus contains the complete make-up of the tree and constantly reproduces itself as nuclei (aura). The aura of this piece of two by four, with cold temperature, produces water as dew.
   
   And yes by golly with black ice and a bit of wind those huge boulders easily meander about the desert of Death Valley.

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4. 4. gwash523 01:41 PM 10/24/12

   They had to include "Beige Lexus SUV". Does anyone else find this funny? Anyway I was kind of confused by the articles title and content. I though that this was more about how to save nearly extinct plants that take away sneezing. I got from the article that sandstorms are dangerous. I appreciate your article, you seen to be very knowledgeable about<a href="http://www.asphaltmaterials.net">topsoil</a>. Please help me to better understand.

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