Yue Guanchao carefully observed these strange phenomena. These ponds were as large as mansions, as medium as houses, and as small as water tanks. They were of different sizes, areas, and depths. They were like puddles formed by muddy roads on rainy days. There is no pattern at all. The cloth is piled up at intervals, and is distributed from the west bank of the Hotan River to the Hongbai Mountain. Further away, this geographical feature has completely disappeared and returned to the state of a dry desert.
Compared with the normal desert in the distance, this situation is unusual!
If it rained too much, the deserts on the west bank should all be moist and water-storage. However, the reality is exactly the opposite. Judging from the dry sand on the east bank of the Hotan River, it may not have rained a lot this time. Due to the rain, the sandy soil on the east coast quickly dried out completely, and returned to a loose and dry state due to the transpiration of the temperature.
Looking at the sand on the west bank of the Hotan River, except for these reservoirs of various sizes, the surrounding sand is not very wet. It can be seen that it is not that there is too much rain to seep in, but that there may be something underneath some tidal flats. , allowing the water in the pond to continue to remain in the sand pit, unable to penetrate and evacuate.
Just separated by a river, there are two different states, which already shows something weird.
Song Siyuan observed for a moment, and her thoughts were obviously the same as Yue Guanchao's. She looked curious and asked Quinny, "Uncle Quinny, is it normal for this kind of mixture of sand, soil and water in the desert? Didn't you say before that there is a mixture of sand, soil and water in the desert?" If you can’t store water, then what’s going on with these small ponds that appear everywhere?”
With the words of this old herdsman in front of them, they could clearly detect that the current situation in the desert was different from normal. There were ponds in the desert, which proved that the hinterland of this devil's desert could store water. The situation was obviously peaceful. What the old herdsmen said was inconsistent, so they could only ask more questions to avoid missing any clues.
The old herdsman stared at the desert full of ponds, and his face became strange. He seemed to have not expected the current situation: "I don't know why the devil's desert hinterland is like this? Most of the deserts are still unbearable. People live in water, so once the rain falls on it, it immediately becomes dry. The situation on the east coast is very consistent with what I said. I just don’t know what is going on with these ponds that can actually allow water to continue on the surface of the desert. .”
Song Siyuan knew that she could not make things too difficult for the old herdsmen, so she carefully studied the current situation.
To understand why these sandpits accumulate rainwater, we must first understand why most deserts cannot store water!
Most deserts cannot store water. The reason is that the sand layer is deep. After the water reaches the desert, it will continue to flow to the lower layers of the desert through loose structures until it sinks into some underground rivers. This reason can also be used to explain the situation in the Devil's Desert. A situation where water cannot be stored. .
On the other hand, if some sandy land can store water, it just proves that the sand layer in this sandy land is not thick, and there are even some solid rock layers and soil layers that can hold up the sand layer. The sand can also block the underground river, so that the water in the pond cannot flow into the underground river and remains on the surface of the sand layer.
Realizing this, Song Siyuan's mind seemed to burst into flames. She carefully thought about the general situation of the Devil's Desert, combined with the current puddles and tidal flats, and an idea came to her mind.
She looked at everyone and said with an excited look: "According to Uncle Queeny, the hinterland of the desert has experienced thousands of years of wind and sand erosion, and the surface sand layer has become immeasurably thick. No matter how much rain or precipitation there is, it will be leaked into the underground river by the sand. The fact that the ponds cannot be dissipated does it mean that the sand layer under these tidal flats is very thin, and there is a hard rock layer at the bottom, which forms small ponds, making it impossible for them to continue to seep water into the underground river. .”
As soon as these words came out of his mouth, Yue Guanchao immediately understood the meaning of Song Siyuan's words, narrowed his eyes and said, "According to your meaning, the underground structure in the hinterland of the desert becomes very special."
Having said that, Yue Guanchao can only doubt this so far. They are not familiar with the rock structure of the desert and cannot verify it in a short time, nor can they test the truth or falsehood of this statement.
Song Siyuan continued his words: "The situation in the desert in front of us is completely different from the situation described by Uncle Queeny. Of course, I'm not saying that Uncle Queeny deliberately deceived us. Maybe even he didn't know that there were people in the hinterland of the desert.
Such a strange situation. "
"According to what he means, the hinterland of the desert has experienced thousands of years of wind and soil erosion. All the more prominent rock formations have been eroded and weathered into sand covering this area. If his explanation is true, then the entire area should They are all the same type of stable geological structures, and the relationship between the geological structures is reasonable and logical."...
This is a mouthful to say, but to explain it with practical examples, you will reap what you sow!
For example, the southwest region has rugged, mountainous and watery peaks. There are many karst landforms formed by groundwater erosion in the mountainous areas. No matter which cave they enter, they can see huge caves hollowed out by groundwater, as well as stalactites hanging downwards. Or they are colorful mineral rocks, or they are canyons and underground pits carved out by rivers.
This is a characteristic of karst landforms, which means that as long as a cave is formed, all caves will probably have similar characteristics.
For another example, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has a high altitude, and most of the peaks are located above the snow line. There are many peaks on the plateau, and there are many ice and snow mountains that remain frozen all year round.
If you come near these icebergs, you can basically see the iron-hard gray-black permafrost, large animals frozen in ice, iceberg rift valleys deeply split by groundwater, snowfields hundreds of miles away from frost, and glaciers standing thousands of meters tall. .
These things are in line with the characteristics of the mountain for ice and snow mountains. If these conditions are not discovered, a question mark will be raised about the formation of the mountain.
Another example is the Lingnan region, which is full of miasma, hot and humid. The mountains here are rugged, and there are hundreds of thousands of mountains surrounded by clouds and mist. In addition, the mountains are high, the forests are dense, and the climate is humid. It is easy for many poisonous insects and snakes to grow in the woods, or they can poison people. The mist miasma.
In order to adapt to this situation, people in Lingnan often like to build stilted buildings or earth buildings with high foundations suspended directly in the jungle. This can not only prevent poisonous insects and wild beasts from attacking village buildings, but also keep away moisture and prevent people from getting sick from inhaling excessive poisonous gas.
In general, there are many karst landforms, many caves, underground rivers, underground dark caves and stalactites, snowfield landforms, many glaciers, many frozen soils, many snowfields. There are hundreds of thousands of mountains in the Lingnan area, and all buildings are hanging high on them. On the grass and trees.
In this way, there are many types of landforms, and they are always the same. What kind of landforms will always match the geographical features that suit the situation. There is a normal logic between the landform features and the geographical conditions.
Without further ado, let’s get back to the subject. Desert landforms are characterized by barren environment, hot climate, drought and little water. Especially in the hinterland of the desert, water vapor basically cannot reach here. Under the harsh wind and sand weather throughout the year, everything stands out in the desert. The rock formations will be eroded into sand and blend into the entire desert ocean.
This also means that the deep sand layer in the hinterland of the desert, which is tens of meters or even hundreds of meters deep, has experienced thousands of years of wind and sand erosion. The rock structure under the sand layer should have been shaped by millions of years of wind and sand. It has been smoothed away a long time ago. The flat desert and undulating sand dunes they present are the result of the rock formations being smoothed and eroded.
In other words, no matter how thick the rock formations in the hinterland of the desert are, at least the underground rock formations in the hinterland should tend to be flat. Even if there are slight fluctuations, the difference will not be particularly large. It is impossible for some rock layers to almost penetrate the sand layer, and Some rock formations have been completely smoothed.
Under the general geographical environment, among the underground rock formations that have been completely eroded by the wind and soil, there can still be protruding rock formations that have not been eroded. This already shows that the actual landform of the West Bank is contrary to the geographical characteristics, which is like water erosion that should have occurred. The underground caves in the rock formations have no traces of groundwater erosion at all, and there are even rocks produced by wind and sand erosion. They are completely inconsistent with the characteristics of caves, and there is a sense of dislocation between the reality and the landform characteristics.
Let’s go back to the desert landscape!
If the deserts in these hinterlands are to conform to the landform characteristics, they should be like what Uncle Quinny described. The entire desert hinterland can quickly drain water into underground rivers, and after evaporation, it will form completely dry sand. There may be some differences in individual areas. , but there will never be such scattered ponds.
To put it more simply, the existence of these ponds just proves that under the sand city, it seems that
There are still some solid rock formations that have not been completely eroded away, which means that there are two completely opposite terrains in the desert hinterland.
One is an underground rock platform that has been completely eroded by the wind and soil and carries heavy sand. The other is an underground solid rock that protrudes from the ground and has not been eroded by the sand.
These two situations all appear under the sand layer, and they become paradoxes of each other. It has been proved that the geological environment under the hinterland of the desert seems to be different from what they suspected. The two completely paradoxical terrains at least show that The geological environment under the desert cannot be called stable.
Song Siyuan explained so much, and everyone generally understood it - the more ponds there are, the more it proves that the underground rock structure in the hinterland of the desert is very complex. This complex terrain that becomes a paradox must not be the result of natural erosion.
After this point was pointed out, Keli thought for a moment, his eyes lit up and he said, "Is it because there are some swamps under these sands that store so much water?"
Before they came to southern Xinjiang, they had already been to Miran Ze. The reason why there is a quicksand river outside Miran City is because there is a swamp with full water content under the quicksand river. This makes the quicksand on the periphery flow like a river. In this state, as long as it is swept into the quicksand river, it will be dragged deep into the swamp.
Since the pond in front of you can also store water, maybe its structure is the same as that of a swamp!
