White Sands National Monument, located in the Tularosa Basin in south-central New Mexico, form the largest gypsum dune field in the world.  The dune fields are a maximum of 10 m high and cover an area of approximately 704 km², with the active dunes moving up to 10 m a year in the northeasterly direction.  The dunes are bordered on the southwest by ephemeral Lake Lucero, on the west by the Sand Andres Mountains and on the east by the Sacramento Mountains.  The dune sand originates from ablation and transport of Lake Lucero evaporitic gypsum deposits by southwesterly winds

[McKee

, 1966].

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