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¤ On Black ¤ Looking west as the day's last light creeps over the San Andreas Mountains near White Sands National Monument. If you look around you as you stand on top of a big dune at White Sands National Monument, you will notice that you are surrounded by mountains. The San Andres Mountains rise above the basin to the west, and the Sacramento Mountains border it to the east. You will also notice that both mountain ranges have the same striped appearance. The stripes are really thick layers of sedimentary rock. The layers are easy to see because they are different colors. Each layer is made of a different material. The darker ones are layers of shale. Lighter bands are limestone. These are the ones that are important to our story because they contain gypsum. --from the National Park Service paulomernik.com