Bathed in violet light, two men search the white expanse of cloth, oblivious to their surroundings. Disoriented insects of various shapes and sizes swoop around the men’s heads. Many of the insects eventually land on the sheet. With a deft motion, one of the men captures a specimen and examines the vial in which a pale-colored moth flutters.
I climb into the truck and check the map again. After leaving Tucson, I-10 E to El Paso drifts past towns with names like “Dragoon”, “Cochise” and “Bowie”. My daughter should be with me. This should be her pilgrimage. As I drive, the sights and smells of the Southwest bombard me through the gap in the driver’s side window—dry desert sand, the smoky smell of mesquite, and sage. I’m headed to sacred places that don’t belong to me.
With a mischievous grin and gleaming dark eyes, Dr. Dragos Zaharescu raises a small spatula to his lips and tastes. At his feet are four containers, each filled with a different type of ground rock—granite, basalt, rhyolite or schist. Zaharescu will blend this rock with bacteria or fungus, creating a sandy medium for seedlings he grows here under the glass dome of Biosphere 2.
Here in Arizona, we have personal experience with dust storms, called “haboobs,” that carry large quantities of dust for miles on atmospheric gravity currents. Similar storms are observed in the Sahara desert, across the Arabian Peninsula, in Kuwait, and regions of North America. Dust storms from Africa dumped 50 million metric tons of dust on the state of Florida in the summer of 2013.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer might have titled her book “Scorpions for Breakfast,” but the grasshopper mouse really does eat them. Don’t try this yourself unless you’re the grasshopper mouse!
