The area of this pond may not seem large, but there is indeed a lot of water in it. Seven or eight people filled buckets with water and poured it out one after another. By noon, they barely managed to completely draw out the water. However, the result was not satisfactory. The dust The water content in the sand is very large. No matter how clean you clean the bottom, if you wait for another ten minutes or a moment, a lot of water remaining in the sand will always accumulate. If you do it a few times, everyone will be exhausted. .
Yue Guanchao put down the bucket and stood by the sandpit and complained: "No, we dug a water curtain hole. It's like a bottomless pit. It can't be cleaned. Where does all this water come from? Why is there more and more left? ?」
Song Siyuan also felt that the current situation was a bit tricky. She took a closer look at the water that was constantly seeping out of the sand pit and said, "That's what sand is like. Some of the sand is dry because all the water they retained has seeped into the ground. Go to the river."
She paused, seeming to have understood the reason for the formation of the pond, and continued to explain: "The pond we saw can store water. Of course, it can be explained that the rock layer under the sand layer blocked the gaps in the underground river channel. The place has experienced strong winds and violent winds. After a rain, the excess rainwater should be discharged through the underground river. Because some rock layers block the gaps in the underground river, all the water is retained in the sand layer. When the water content in the sand layer continues to increase, it cannot be discharged. When excreted, it can only be evacuated to other sand..."
The sand itself has loose particles and will stick together after being soaked with water. This also causes the volume of some sand to continue to compress. When the compression reaches a certain level, the sand soaked by water can no longer withstand the pressure and continues to be compressed under the pressure of gravity. Collapse, forming this inverted bucket-shaped bunker.
There is a saying that when people walk to higher places, water flows to lower places. At this time, because the terrain of the sand pit is low, a lot of water seeping into the sand will flow into the sand pit that has collapsed into an inverted bucket-shaped sand pit. The pond will not reach equilibrium until the pond is completely filled, and water will no longer seep into the pond.
Speaking of this, Song Siyuan's eyes lit up: "I think it is also for this reason that the sand pits and ponds with a mixture of dry and wet are formed on the west bank. When we get here, I think you understand it."
The sand and soil near the sand pits can be kept dry. On the one hand, they are connected to the underground river and can drain excess water into the underground river. On the other hand, because there are sand pits nearby, the excess water will fall into the pond due to the height difference. , the surrounding sand will also continue to become dry due to water seeping into the puddle, and when it is evaporated by high heat, of course, except for the puddle, the rest of the surface sand will be completely dry again.
From this point of view, the pond they saw was just the result. As long as the water level in the pond lowered, the water at higher places would still fall into the pond. It was like a pit by the river. You just need to put the soil in it. Dig the hole, and after a while, water will seep out of it automatically.
This situation is because the pit is too close to the river, and the soil is full of water. The sand pit in front of us is also in the same state.
She finally said: "We can't carry the water all by ourselves. Let's just dig a hole. As long as we can dig down into the rock formation, we can check the situation."
Helpless, Yue Guanchao and the others could only jump into the pond, pick up their engineering pickaxes and keep digging into the moist sand.
The water-containing sand is much heavier than ordinary sand. During the sand digging process, you can feel the water seeping out of the sand every time you dig a shovel. However, after a while, the water has already reached above the knees, and there are still It is necessary to constantly lift out the seeping water with a bucket and let the water return to the ankles before digging can continue.
They kept carrying water and digging sand until they reached five or six meters underground. Then they began to dig out gravel from the moist sand.
Click, Yue Guanchao picked up the shovel and shoveled into the sand. It no longer felt wet and sunken, as if it had hit something hard. The shovel hit a foreign object and made a clicking sound.
He noticed that there was something hard under the shovel, so he raised his arms and kept digging into the soil above. Finally, he began to dig out a lot of fine rocks. When these fine rocks were dug out, the big rocks underneath began to be clearly visible.
At this point, the rock layer under the sand has been excavated, which is in line with Song Siyuan's inference - geological disasters have piled up many stones, and they have all been buried under the sand layer during thousands of years of sand erosion.
The era when they appeared was at the end of the Tang Dynasty, only a thousand or two thousand years ago.
Of course, it has not been weathered much and is only buried in the shallow layers of the desert. If it is a rock formation that has experienced thousands of years of wind and sand erosion, you may not be able to find its shadow even if you dig thousands of meters.
No matter what these rock formations and stones are, after going through all kinds of difficulties, at least they have achieved results.
Yue Guanchao and the others dug out most of the large stones and put them in buckets. They walked along the slope of the pond to the beach. When they poured the stones out, Song Siyuan also took out the stones they found from Hongbai Mountain and poured them with a bucket of water. The large amount of sediment wrapped around the stone was all washed away, and the original appearance of the stone was clearly visible to everyone.
The stones in these ponds are mostly gray-black or khaki in color, with traces of sand erosion on the surface. There are also many things similar to metal dots in the cross-sections, as if the stones are mixed with a lot of metal powder and crystal particles. , messy colored stones, shining slightly under the sun.
At the same time, Song Siyuan also noticed the stones they took out from Hongbai Mountain.
The material of these stones is exactly the same as the stones under the sand pit. Whether it is the color, texture, hardness or veins of the stones, they are similar to the stones under the sand pond. In addition, the cross section also has granular metallic dark lines and variegated colors. , then it is more certain that they belong to the same type of rock formation.
Realizing this, Song Siyuan's guess has come true, and she said excitedly: "The rock formations we see in the Red and White Mountains should be similar to sandstone, sedimentary rock, travertine, sedimentary rock, and dolomite, and some of them are similar to glass powder. The things with the variegated stone are probably the jade veins hidden in the Red and White Mountains, and the metal particles and powder are the metal ores existing in the mountain.”
"In addition, there should be a lot of raw stones and minerals such as agate, opal, bloodstone, jadeite and dolomite jade in the rock formations."
"You mean, there are also jade materials from Kunlun Mountain in Hongbai Mountain?"
Quinny grew up in the Hotan Oasis and knew where the Kunlun jade veins are located. Most of them are along the Karakoram Mountains and the Kashgar River, or along the Altyn Mountains. At first glance, Song Siyuan said that there are also jade veins in the Hongbai Mountains. His face looked both curious and surprised.
I am curious because Hongbai Mountain is located in the desert and is too far away from Kunlun Mountain. It should not be regarded as a side mountain of Kunlun Mountain. It can be said that it is completely out of bounds. I was surprised because Hongbai Mountain is located in a desert, and the soil on the mountain has basically been eroded away. Most of the mountain retains the original color of the rock formations. It is unlikely that such a barren mountain has Kunlun jade raw materials.
Song Siyuan nodded. She knew what everyone was curious about and explained: "When I first heard the introduction of the Red and White Mountain, I was also curious about why this mountain has not been eroded by wind and sand after it has been in the desert for thousands of years. Falling off? Even if all the soil on the mountain has completely disappeared, it can still stand firm in the desert. Thousands of years of wind and sand seem to have no effect on him."
"Either it means that this mountain really has magical power and can resist wind and sand erosion. Or it means that the rock material is very hard and is not easily eroded by water and soil."
She paused for a moment and her tone returned to seriousness: "Judging from the material of the stone we found, I think it belongs to the latter, which is related to the geological formation of Hongbai Mountain..."
Going back in time to ancient times, the geological pull of the Indian Ocean Plate and the Eurasian Plate caused the Himalayan orogeny, which caused the southwestern part of the Tarim Basin to uplift and fracture. Under the squeeze of geological activities, today's Red and White Mountains were formed.
This mountain should be hidden under the basin. If it were not for geological movements, it would not appear on the ground. The entire mountain plate belongs to the same plate as the Kunlun Mountains. In fact, it is the same geological rock formation, but they are in a desert. Among them, the surroundings were all sandy soil, and the completely different surface geology covered up the true state of the rock formations. This made them feel that Hongbai Mountain was completely unrelated to Kunlun Mountain.
Then, coming back, the gravel they found in the pond was made of the same material as the gravel in the Hongbai Mountain Cave, which proved Song Siyuan's guess!
Thousands of years ago, during the late Tang Dynasty, a geological disaster did occur near Hongbai Mountain. The result of this geological disaster was that a section of the Hongbai Mountain near the Hotan River fractured and collapsed. Under the earthquake and mountain shaking, the rock layers continued to dump into the Hotan River. In the desert on the west coast, rocky beaches are formed on top of the sand.
It is also this part of the rubble that blocks the passage of the underground river.
, and covered by thousands of years of sand, thus forming the flat sand dunes on the west bank. Only when there is excessive rainfall will the ponds accumulate water. The gravel they just dug out was from when the Hongbai Mountain broke off. , the resulting fragmented stone.
If this is the case, it can also explain why the eastern foot of Hongbai Mountain is so steep, as if the mountain encountered some insurmountable barrier and ended abruptly near a tributary of the Hotan River.
This is because the rock formations here once fractured thousands of years ago. Judging from the situation on the entire West Bank, it can be inferred that the fractures in the mountains have almost reached the level of earthquake disasters, so much so that the gravel produced by the fractures of the mountains has destroyed nearly ten miles of sand on the West Bank. The ground is completely covered.
"Even if it is proven that the gravel in the sand pit is made of the same material as the Red and White Mountain, where will we go to find the Sand Sea King City?"
Yue Guanchao became confused, narrowed his eyes and asked.
Song Siyuan's eyes flashed with light, she pointed her finger downward and said: "Far away in the horizon, close in front of you, the Shahai King City is buried under the rock formations."
