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Gypsum landscapes occur globally, but they abound in the Chihuahuan Desert, from Coahuila and Durango to the Guadalupe Mountains in Texas and New Mexico’s White Sands. These white-sand outcrops are certainly harsh. But they’re also hotspots of biodiversity. That includes the complex, fragile ecosystems known as “biocrusts.”

Established in 1962, the National Natural Landmarks Program each year designates a handful of sites in public or private ownership that embody the best of the nation’s natural heritage. And the newest landmark is a West Texas property.

When it comes to sand dunes in our region, we think of New Mexico’s White Sands, the Monahans Sandhills, or the Salt Basin Dunes near the Guadalupe Mountains. But there’s another great sand sea here.

Large swaths of West Texas are dominated by features called coppice dunes. These dunes reveal that, when human activity and extreme weather intersect, landscapes can be rapidly transformed.

As archeological techniques and perspectives evolve, artifacts collected decades ago can be as revelatory as new finds.

More than any mountains, mesas or canyons, the region's sand dunes distill the desert’s defining phenomenon, drought.

These ovens, where ancient people slow-roasted succulents like agaves, are rewriting the region's deep history.

Agave-roasting was a mainstay of life in prehistoric West Texas. And new research suggests the practice was as much about celebration as it was sustenance.

Trans-Pecos Texas has a stunning diversity of reptiles and amphibians, and herpetologists, both professional and avocational, flock here from around the world. Now, researchers are turning their attention to one example of that diversity – a mysterious lizard known as the Dixon’s whiptail.

Órale, maquina is the featured Caló word of this week. We talked about it in a previous episode as one of many derivatives of the term a la madre. It’s used to exclaim maximum astonishment, wonder or disbelief. It’s what you say when you’ve reached the end of your known reality and have no words to convey it. All there is from that point on is a primal utterance or scream. You see a vast spaceship suddenly rise out of the horizon? Maquina!