DocAndersen
Would you believe me if I told you of a desert in Maine? Yes, the state famous for Lighthouses, ocean views, and Acadia National Forest. The land in fact, of lumber, lobster, and rain. The desert of Maine is not what you think. This is not the great Sahara Desert that stretches across one end of Africa. Or Death Valley, a desert in California. Or for that matter the Gobi desert in China. This dessert isn’t a dessert but is called that. Deserts have a couple of rules. One of those rules is that rain has to be a rare event. As in, rain happens very infrequently, less in some deserts throughout the world, than 2 or 3 times a year. Less than a five-inch rainfall in a year.
Deserts are dry. Deserts are hot, and Deserts aren’t in Maine. But, there is a desert in Maine. Ten thousand years ago there was a huge plate of glaciers that covered the US. Well actually let us be fair. It covered Canada and spread down to the US. A glacier, a large block of ice moves slowly. As it moves it grinds rocks and other objects into small fine particles. Very much like the ocean grinding rocks into sand, the resulting ground rock from a glacier is called silt. It is not called sand it is called silt. Now, if you look at the silt and pick up a handful of silt it acts just like sand. Finely ground rock is sand. But, when a glacier does, it is called silt. The silt resulted from the grinding rocks.
As the great glaciers retreated they left the silt. Due to geology of the land of Maine, a lot of the silt gathered in a single valley. It created the desert of Maine. We, my wife and I, trekked the desert of Maine. We didn’t need a camel, but there was a camel at the opening of the desert. We did also leave some money (they part was closed for the season already). We walked from the starting point (a closed gift shop) to the end. There are a couple of pictures that show where the silt ends and the world returns to normal. It was 15 feet pretty much straight down. There is a creek that stopped the silt from moving at one end of the park. Buried under the sand, a spring house for the 1930s.
What if I told you there was a desert in Maine? Would you believe me?
Humm, it looks like sand to me.
It really is sand, just not traditionally what we think of sand!