To some of our younger people, recycling is a relatively new concept that arose with the realization that the resources of Planet Earth are limited. Older people, though, may remember hand-me-downs from older siblings or reusing jelly jars as drinking tumblers—recycling, even if not called so by name.
Yet even human use and reuse is a johnny-come-lately thing. If you
wander around the Chihuahuan Desert for awhile, eventually you'll come across
sandstone, a prime example of ancient recycling. Each grain making up the sandstone
represents a tiny fragment of earlier rock—rock that once was as solid as a mountain.
Erosion and time slowly broke it down into particles, fragments further battered as
water and wind smashed them together. Finally coming to rest as sand in lake or ocean,
the grains through time became cemented by water-borne chemicals and voila! Sandstone!
All that is left is to lift the newly formed solid rock above water level and uncover
it by erosion. And, of course, this sandstone will, in time, likewise crumble, likely
to once more be rejuvenated as a second generation sandstone.
Contributor: Arthur H. Harris, Laboratory for Environmental Biology, Centennial Museum, University of Texas at El Paso.
Desert Diary is a joint production of the Centennial Museum and KTEP National Public Radio at the University of Texas at El Paso.