Timeline of Dunes on the Black Rock Desert

Below is a chronologically ordered list of references concerning the Black Rock Desert dunes. The first few references are photos of the desert that are interesting in that there are no dunes present.

1920s

1926

"The Winning of Barbara Worth" is filmed on the Black Rock Desert.

1940s

David Loomis' book "Combat zoning: military land-use planning in Nevada" discusses the evolution of the Black Rock Desert Gunnery Range.  It appears that the range was in use in 1942, cancelled in 1943 and reinstated in 1944.  The range was an aerial gunnery range, "no bombs, rockets or explosives were to be used".  During the time the range was in operation, portions of the Black Rock Desert were closed to public use, which would have greatly reduced any dunes.

The faux-history web page Military and Postwar Occupation includes a more detailed timeline that was probably used to update the Black Rock Desert Wikipedia page.

Russell Elliot's book "The History of Nevada" has an undated picture of the Black Rock Desert on page 211 that looks to be from the 1940's.

1950s

In the 1950's, the Black Rock Desert was part of the Lovelock North Gunnery Range.  The "Lovelock North Gunnery Range Inventory Project Report" says:

1.This report of Findings and Determination of Eligibility has been prepared as requested for the Lovelock North Gunnery Range. Although the site consisted of 71 8,000 acres in 1945, this amount varied over time. Use of the 71 8,000 acres which originally comprised the range was granted to the DoD by a Department of the Interior letter dated January 13, 1945. There is no record of the DoD's use of the property from this time until the 1950s when a smaller range was consisting of 272,000 acres was acquired and the range was renamed Black Rock Desert Gunnery Range. This property was acquired by letter permit from the Department of the Interior in 1949.

2. While information regarding the specific use of the target area was not located, it is known that NAAS, Fallon under NAS, Alameda used the target During World War 11, when propellor type aircraft were used and gunnery training from Fallon was conducted over an area comprised of approximately 1,559,000 acres. This area, located in Pershing and Hurnboldt Counties, Nevada, was known as the Lovelock Aerial Gunnery Range and used by the Navy. As of 1955, NAAS Fallon was the gunnery satellite field for all'fleet squadrons based in the San Francisco area. In April 1959 the area was used for gunnery practice with 22 millimeter machine guns.

3. The Department of Interior permit for the north portion of the Lovelock Gunnery Range was canceled by a BuDocks letter dated March 6,1946. The letter lists the property as surplus. In a summary of presentations regarding the acquisition of either the Black Rock or Sahwave Ranges, it was noted that the Navy needed the Black Rock Range for 1 80 weekdays and the Sahwave Range for 143 days, and the length of time the area would be required should not extend beyond 1965 (SB0849). No other information regarding deactivation/disposal is available at this time.

Gus Bundy's photo "Seven wild horses running on the Black Rock Desert" was taken in the 1950's.  However, this might be Bluewing, Adobe, or Misfits Flat (near Dayton), not the Black Rock Desert.  Laura Levy suggests it might be the "western edge of the Kumiva Flat looking back at the SE corner of that playa toward Juniper Pass"

1951

1955

Nell Murbarger, Desert Magazine, "Lost Hardin Silver, Mystery or Hoax?", April, 1955, p9-12 has a photo of the norther part of the Black Rock Desert, though the photo does not show the playa surface.

1956

Desert Magazine, "Navy Land Grab in Nevada's Black Rock Country"

The faux-history web page Military and Postwar Occupation includes the photo below with the description "In 1942, the Army Air Corps established a temporary tent city in support of operations in the Black Rock Desert." However, the bottom of the page says "Images ... Occupation of BRC by military - 1956".  Mike Morgan used Tin Eye to find another version that is titiled "8-Ottoman Red Crescent 1915-1917 Beersheba".  Mike points out that a crescent is visible on the flag, so unless the US Army Air Corps was having a dress-up day, this photo is not likely to be of the Black Rock Desert.

1960s

1961

The Clark Gable/Marilyn Monroe movie "The Misfits" was not filmed on the Black Rock Desert.

1964

James T. Neal's photo of the Black Rock Desert shows dunes similar to the dunes that started to appear in 2000.

I contacted Dr. Neal in July, 2010 and he stated that the photo was from 1963-1964 as the man in the photo transferred from Dr. Neal's employ in 1964.  The photo appeared in an October, 1970 article.

The reference is from the June 2006 BLM Environmental Assesment below.

Neal, James T., 1970. Playa Surface Features as Indicators of Environment, Proc. 1970 Playa Lake Symposium, Texas Tech Univ.

What's interesting here is that archive.org shows http://www.lib.ttu.edu as being removed on April 16, 2006, or possibly well before the Burning Man EA below was published in July, 2006 Happily, archive.org does have a cache of the site at

http://web.archive.org/web/20031003024901/http://www.lib.ttu.edu/playa/text/playa9.htm:

Aeolian sand deposits along the eastern shore of Rogers Lake, California (Fig. 24), typify problems of demarcating the playa boundary at numerous localities in many deserts. Erosional modification of the original pattern and subsequent deposition have rendered the boundary obscure. At Rogers Lake the sand has mantled the lacustrine deposits, and cementation has largely stabilized the dune topography, whereas it may be actively migrating elsewhere. Material identification can be improved through the complemental use of thermal infrared imagery and through the use of low-sun-angle photography to enhance shadows. The problems inherent in the photographic discrimination of blanket sand deposits are portrayed in Figure 25 where slight relief and similar reflectance levels create a difficult situation.

BlackRockDesert1926-1989.kmz is a Google Earth file that uses Google Earth's photo capability to determine roughly where the photo was taken. Interestingly, the Neal 1963-64 photo was taking 4 or 5 years before Heizer's land art piece was created but was in a location within 900 meters of Heizer's piece.  Formerly, I thought that the photo was taken in 1970 and the dunes could have been caused by Heizer's work, but this is not possible. The Neal 1963-64 photo is near a very busy entrance to the playa. In the kmz file, the Neal 1963-64 photo does not precisely match the horizon, this could be because of scaling artifacts from the printing process in the original publication or in the scanning process.

The Dunes are much worse now. It is great that there is a picture from 1963-64 showing that this is not a new process. What is different is that there are many more dunes that are much larger. See http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Burning+Man+dunes&m=text

1967

No dunes.

See also Life magazine for a photo.

See also "After 'Dissipate'" for other resources.

1969

Walter De Maria's 29 minute film Hard Core is shot on the Black Rock Desert.  On p 118 of "Earthworks", Suzaan Boettger writes that Michael Heizer appears with De Maria.:

"In 1969, Heizer and De Maria would play out their fantasies of Wild West virility in De Maria's twenty-nine-minute film "Hard Core", a slow, extremely spare drama on the Black Rock Desert, north of Reno, Nevada. Against ponderous soundtrack rhythms of cattle grunting, De Maria's drumming and ocean waves crashing (there is no dialog), the camera makes seven slow 360 pans of the austere landscapes horizontally bisected into expanses of blue sky above a bleached desert. Heizer wears a white cowboy hat. De Maria a black one, each pulled low over the forehead. As in the immensely popular 1966 western movie Clint Eastwood, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," the camera level is low and looks up at the men's gun holsters from behind right. As they finger pistols decorated with old-fashioned arabesque carvings, the sonorous rhythm is suddenly punctuated by a shootout between them. Then to the roar of wind, the two "hard core" mavericks saunter away, magically unharmed"

De Maria's composition "Ocean Music", is available. De Maria went on to create The Lightening Field in New Mexico.  Below is photo from De Maria titled "Hard Core":

Below are a three frames from Hard Core via Clara Schulmann's Le Silo:

SFMoMA had a showing in June, 2010:

1980s

1982

Photo from "50 MIles Out of Gerlach/Bad Business", 45 RPM record.  The view is looking north towards the Calico mountains.  The "Gravity End" sign was likely originally sign from the Black Rock Desert Gunnery Range era.  Rumor has it that the signs were cut down in the late '90's or early '00's by a motorcycle group for safety reasons.

1987-89

No Dunes.

1989

Far From Home filmed on the Black Rock Desert.

There are a few scenes at the end of Part 5 of Far From Home that show the desert and have no dunes.

No Dunes:

 1990s

1995

The Friends of the Black Rock website has this picture.

1997

Spencer Tunick's photo "Nevada Desert 1997."  I'm not yet sure exactly where this photo was taken, it might be Hualapai, which is where Burning Man 1997 was held.

On October 15, 1997 ThrustSSC breaks the speed of sound at Black Rock Desert.

See John Coppinger's Photo Diary and Richard Meredith-Hardy's Thrust pages for more from the event.

No dunes

Two undated photos from the ThrustSSC site:

(Robin Richardson)

(Robin Richardson)

1998

(Stacey Campbell)

1998

Burning Man 1998 occurred, roads are still visible in Google Maps for either 1998 or 1999:

View Larger Map

The Google Earth Placemark for Burning Man 1998 indicates the date of the image in the lower left.  In October, 2009, Google earth indicated the image was taken on May 25, 2006. Google Earth's View -> Historical Imagery can be used to obtain the image from September 17, 2003 that shows two sets of roads, one from 1998 and one from 1999.  The Burning  Man website says that 1998 was the first year that a drag was used to smooth the playa.

1999

These undated photos are associated with the "Lovelock A Inventory Project Report", which mentions an August 4, 1999 site visit.

2000s

2000

April 17, 2000: BLM Email

From Mike_Bilbo@nv.blm.gov  Mon Apr 17 17:58:39 2000

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To: Many addresses removed Message-ID: <882568C5.00051525.00@LMNV1.nv.blm.gov> Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 17:55:30 -0700 Subject: Playa Safety Alert - Transient Dunes  Some of you will get this twice because I put several group lists together for this alert.  New transient dunes have formed on the Black Rock Desert playa west of the Coyote Springs vicinity (landsailor Brian Covey GPSd about a 4-mile swath yesterday), and are a potential safety hazard.  We need to get the word out to respective publics through websites and other means.  The central playa trackways are partially covered by these dunes in certain areas and persons used to travelling at high speed, day or night, might hit these due to low visibility (sun angle, darkness, color blending, travel direction, mirage, etc).  For those of you who are not familiar with Coyote Springs, it is one of three mound springs northwest of the Garrett Place (Frog Farm, Bordello Spring).  It is the area that Doug Keister has the annual golf tournament.  These dunes also overlay parts of the land speed record trackway, especially the measured mile area.  This week and weekend (4/18-23), one of our geologists, Delores Cates and volunteer Sue McMurray, and some other persons, are going to map this phenomenom.  I have asked Sue and Chet Geyer to help with AeroPac's radio-controlled plane in doing low altitude aerial photo documentation.  Sue McMurray is going to spend the rest of this week documenting this feature.  Delores told me the dune graines are different than the normal clay-silt mounds on the playa margins.  This may be a function of certain weather, wind patterns, ice/wind deposition, seasonal ripples, or maybe the more or less dry winter - and maybe a combination of all.  But there may also be other factors related to ancient Lake Lahonton/playa weathering processes.  Unfortunately, there have been very limited studies done on Black Rock Desert playa weathering effects, and very few studies on playas in general.  It is important to note that BLM is not in a research mode at this time.  We do have some questions about how this feature formed.  But the main thing right now is to get the feature documented, especially with reference to the visiting public and permit events.  Because the feature appears to be a natural phenomenon, but also unique and a potential safety hazard, we will document and GPS this feature through staff and volunteer coordination to learn its physical extent.  This information will then be passed on to you so that you can alert your respective friends, associates, customers and the general public.   

2000

June 27: Porsche brings out a number of cars for the press.  See "The Ten Best Cars Larry Has Ever Driven", which puts the date at June 27.  A July 22, 2000 Toronto Star article has no date. The October 10, 2000 NY Times article "Behind the Wheel/Porsche 911 Turbo; Exploring the need for Speed: 175 m.p.h and a Cloud of Dust" covers the event and says "In the unforgiving heat of July".

(Laura Levy)

The photo has no obvious dunes, but who would race a $120K automobile at 175 mph over dunes?   More photos and placing this photo using Google Earth would be useful.

July 31: "Preliminary Analysis of Playa Bedforms of the Black Rock Desert, Washoe County, Nevada"

by D. Craig Young, Jr. Private communication.

"An analysis that indicates that the dunes were created by surface:

The bedforms currently present on the Black Rock playa are distinctly different from common silt dunes. They have well sorted, generally symmetrical sedimentary structures. The sorting of sand-sized grains (coalesced silt and clay particles) shows a distinct coarsening upward (i.e., particle size increases upward through the bedform with the largest particles deposited last). The bedforms rest unconformably on the playa surface; it is possible to trace the modern playa surface below individual bedforms. (There have been suggestions posted on the BLM's Black Rock e-mail mailing list that these features may be the result of tectonic deformation, frost- or salt-heaving, or other subsurface processes. The unconformable position of the bedforms shows that they are a result of surface processes.) Individual bedforms also show the regular polygonal cracking associated with the wetting and drying of the lakebed. This suggests that the bedforms have been wet since their deposition.

The general morphology of the bedforms suggests that they were likely formed beneath the waters of the shallow playa lake that covered portions of the basin early this year. The distinct particle sorting, their general distribution, and desiccation cracking point toward a lacustrine or lakebed origin. Wind action on the surface of the shallow lake influenced the pattern of bedform deposition, and the general fluid dynamics of both wind and water acted to form -like features. The seasonal lake that forms at the end of the Quinn River system is subjected to the vagaries of seasonal storms and wind direction. The shallow lake, moved by the winds of an approaching storm, can easily shift to cover a new portion of the playa.

...

It is likely that the socio-cultural record of the Black Rock playa is most significant in explaining the presence of the playa "dunes". The increased use of the playa resulted in a concurrent increase in sediment budget due primarily to vehicle traffic associated with large-scale events. The previous playa equilibrium was affected as the sediment budget crossed a threshold where seasonal reworking could not reestablish open playa conditions. A recent increase in sediment load in the seasonal playa lake resulted in bedform formation. The playa system is moving toward a new equilibrium associated with the new sediment budget by establishing "dunes" on the open playa."

2000

August 16: BLM site: Black Rock Desert Travel Advisory (with photos)

Page dated as being last updated on July 17, 2001. Archive.org has this page as first appearing on August 16, 2000.

(Mike Bilbo?)

(Mike Bilbo?)

2000

August 24: www.portofentry.org website about playa conditions at the Burning Man airport:

"There are playa serpents on both sides. The area to the southwest of the Airport Camp is filled with playa serpents. For those who don't know, playa serpents are little dunes, lumps, bumps, curvy hillocks in the otherwise smooth and flat dry lake bed. They are numerous in areas that were smooth last year. They may all be gone next year. Don't take the desert for granted."

2000

August/September: Dune at Burning Man

(Tansy Brooks)

2001

Philippe Glade's 2011 book "Black Rock City, NV: The Ephemeral Architecture of Burning Man" has a photo from 2001:

Todo: find more photos of dunes from these years.  The primary focus of this site is to find photos of dunes before 2000, but more photos after 2000 would be useful.

2004

January 25: Jeff DeLong, "Web campaign fires on Burning Man," Reno Gazette-Journal

"The BLM already has proposed a study on "playa dynamics" that would examine, among other things, small and unexplained sand dunes noticed in the vicinity of the festival in recent years.

"Not enough is known about it," Cooper said."

Cooper is "David Cooper, chief of the BLM's Black Rock Desert unit."

2004

March 28: archive.org copy of www.stopburningman.org says:

"A phenomenon called "playa serpents" is becoming increasingly common on the playa. These playa serpents are low-lying dunes that form due to wind action. OPINION: Some people theorize that they are caused by disturbance of heavier sediments on the surface of the playa than normally are disturbed by wind alone, resulting in a less stable surface. This disturbance is probably more likely to happen with 30,000 people and their cars out on the playa. In 1997, the land speed record was set at Black Rock Desert. Since then, the playa serpents have become much more numerous, and such a feat may not be possible at Black Rock anymore, since simply driving a car out there can be difficult. FACT: Dave Cooper, NCA Manager, has recognized that not enough is known about playa serpents. "BLM has proposed a study of "playa dynamics" that would include an examination of small, mysterious sand dunes observed near the festival site in recent years." (RGJ article)"

2005

May 27: Photos of the Quinn River reaching the middle of the Black Rock Desert.  More water would likely help smooth out the dunes.

(Laura Levy)

2006

June: Burning Man 2006-2010 Special Recreation Permit NV-020-06-EA-11 Environmental Assessment, prepared by the BLM:

"The sediments of the playa surface are subject to displacement by winds when dry and disturbed. Winds that most commonly move thsurface materials are associated with frontal passage or thunderstorms. Wind movement of sediment particles caperiodic formation of low, transient dunes. Wind erosion is a function oparticle erodibility, surface roughness and weather conditions. Vehicle use and other disturbances on the playa alter the surface roughness. Increased roughness slows sediment particle movement across the surface, causing particles to accumulate on the leeward side of low features forming transient dunes. The dunes are temporary featuresgenerally less than a foot in height. The actions of wind and water over one or more winters lead to the removal of the dunes. These dunes have become increasingly common over the past several years, but have been documented prior to periods of heavy human activity on the playa surface (Neal 1970)."

The (Neal 1970) reference is discussed above.

2006

September 27: AERO-PAC Playa Serpents

Archive.org first cached this page on 9/27/2006. The page has pictures of two incidental dunes, one of which is the same as above, the other is below.

(Mike Bilbo)

2007

July/August issue of Nevada Magazine includes this photo:

June: North American Eagle - World Land Speed Challenger

Good news! The North American Eagle - World Land Speed Challenger is on the Black Rock, doing testing for a Land Speed Record. However, they describe the Black Rock: "There is considerable rubble on the surface, so defodding is necessary." This is fairly standard practice, something similar was done for ThrustSSC.

On June 6, the North American Eagle site says: "The playa will be in excellent shape for our test runs."  However, in 2010, it appeared that American Eagle was negotiating with the BLM to use Diamond Valley.

2009

May 12: Photo by Tee Poole

(Tee Poole, Some Rights Reserved)

June: 2nd wettest June in Reno, 3rd wettest in Lovelock

June, 2009 was the third wettest June in Reno (1.52 inches) and the second wettest June in Lovelock (2.10 inches). On July 1, 2009, Weather Underground for Lovelock, NV said:

Top ten wettest junes on record for Reno

June 2009 ranks as the third wettest

Top ten wettest junes on record for Lovelock

June 2009 ranks as the second wettest

This might help explain North American Eagle's comment about the quality of the surface being good. On Memorial Day, I found the surface to be poor, with a loose fluffy layer in many locations that before 2000 were hard packed. The incidental dunes continue to be a hazard, these dunes were not there before 2000. The wet June helped improve the surface after Memorial Day, but the post 2000 dunes continue to be a problem.

Todo: consider finding rainfall data for other years.

September 19, 2009: National Geographic blogs about Burning Man and includes an image.  Laura Levy points out that the image is probably from 2006 because the Belgian Waffle is visible. The credit says "Ikonos satellite image courtesy Geoeye.". Unfortunately,  in the blog entry, Larry Harvey is quoted as saying "No roads, no buildings, no trash—as if we were never there."  See below for evidence of the 2007 and 2008 Burning Man events was still visible during the 2009 event.

October, 2009: Laura Levy at http://www.spatial-ed.com/ pointed out the 2008 Burning Man Poster at http://marketplace.burningman.com/catalog.php?act=view_prod_info&id_prod=52526&i=&l=&sid=ad89fe42e52dc7997650d4a6ddaeec60 that shows the 2007 dune.  Below is an image from Laura's site with the dune highlighted:

Bad enough that the 2008 image shows the 2007 trash fence, but the 2009  Burning Man gigapan images at http://gigapan.org/gigapans/fullscreen/34311/ show the 2008 roads just above the the 2009 location.  How is this considered "Leave No Trace"?

2009

Porsche ad features the Black Rock Desert. It is not clear when the footage was shot. Porsche was out on the Black Rock in 2000.

Bugatti Veyron 16.4 high speed test drive Black Rock Desert. It is unclear when this video was taken.

November, 2009

2010

May 24, 2010: Desert Research Institute study released:

 Ken Adams, Don Sada, "Black Rock Playa, Northwestern Nevada: Physical Processes and Aquatic Life", Desert Research Institute

The paper refers to this site, specifically Jon Sarriugarte's 2008 picture.  The paper also mentions James T. Neal's 1970 photo.

The Wikipedia page showing the 2010 site shows the 2007 trash fence.  Click on the link and look at the line from 5:30 to 3:00.

(Kyle Harmon, via Wikipedia,  Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)

2011

April, 2011: We drove on to the Black Rock Desert from 12 mile and experienced the wind driven water effect.

June/July, 2011: The Black Rock Desert was wet enough to prevent driving straight across from 12 mile to Frog in June.  However, it dried nicely in time for the July 4th weekend, though two of our party got stuck.  In June, the trash fence dune was clearly visible from the Soldier Meadows Road.  Overall, the surface seemed better than the previous year, though there are still plenty of obvious dunes.

August, 2011: Mark Robison's article "Fact Checker: Are serpent dunes traces of Burning Man?" appears in the Reno Gazette-Journal.  I enjoyed speaking with Mark by phone, but I don't agree with his analysis.  Mark writes:

"Nevada's Black Rock Desert is one of the world's unique geologic locations. Activities there are worth scrutinizing to determine if it's being harmed."

"In this case, the concerns appear unfounded."

In particular, I don't agree with some of Ken Adams' comments.

The article attributes the following to Ken:

"Two, he doesn't see vegetation growing atop the dunes, thus increasing their permanency and size, because the playa sediment is not hospitable to vegetation."

Ken has not seen vegetation, but I have.  The photos below were taken in October 2011:

Looking East

A close up

That's not much vegetation, but it is the first time I've seen vegetation that far south.  There has always been vegetation up by the Quinn River, but not at this location, roughly 5 miles from the 12 mile entrance (40 48' 43.2  x 119 10' 15.6).

View Larger Map

Ken is quoted as saying:

"Three, the serpent dunes are not actually permanent."

I agree that some of the dunes move around.  Dunes in large areas tend to migrate downwind.  However, the 2007 Trash Fence Dune was visible in July, 2011 from the Soldier Meadow's Road.  Unfortunately, I don't have a photo. The main point is: The dunes are new since 2000.  I've found only one picture of dunes before 2000.  Wouldn't someone have found the dunes to be interesting enough to photograph?  The dunes are new, and whether they move around or not besides the point.

Future Plans

It would be nice to get more photos, especially from after 2000.

Doing a survey of the dunes would be of interest.

Comparing the state of the Black Rock Desert Playa with the state of other playas, such as Bluewing and Adobe would be of interest.

I'd like to get a copy of De Maria's Hard Core.

Conclusions

The dunes were first documented in 1963-64.  Other than the 1963-64 photo, no other photos from 1926-1999 have shown the particular type of dunes shown in the 1963-64 photo.

In 2000, the dunes appeared in large numbers have been getting much larger and more numerous over time.

Burning Man needs to stop using "Leave No Trace" and use something like "Tread Lightly".

Mapping the dunes to get a baseline would help determine if the dune problem is getting worse and the orientation of the dunes with regard to the Burning Man site.

The Burning Man organization tries quite hard to reduce the impact of the event. This problem is caused by the amount of dust disturbed by the attendees. The best solution would be for Burning Man to buy land elsewhere and hold the event there. The perfect solution would be land from an open-pit mine that needed reclaiming.

About the photos

The photos above are from various sources and mostly used without permission.

Contact

Contact me at cxbrooks at gmail

1926