Transmitting from the Mojave Wilderness in Joshua Tree, California, now is the time for Desert Oracle Radio, the voice of the desert.

Well, night has fallen on the Mojave and it's nighttime all across the American desert and that is sure a relief

this week it got hot and it got hot fast hope you enjoyed spring I hope you got outside and did something. I managed to get up to the eastern Sierra for those last

cool days up around one of the best places and I won't say exactly where because I sure like how I

never see any other people out there.

Once you're past that last little town with the White Mountains rising up alongside Highway 6,

well then it's just a few minutes to Nevada, and then you're on the road to Tonabah, the road to Great Basin National Park, or up to the Ruby Mountains, out to Windover. Every direction is good out there. Go down

to Lincoln County if you like. Go at night and watch the skies. Stop for a beer and a grilled cheese at the little

ALEEN and Rachel. But if you go just six miles up from the California, Nevada state line.

You'll come across a place that looks very weird from above.

Very weird when photographed by satellite.

Raphael Mazzor posted a couple of pictures on the internet, on Twitter, if you want to get

specific about it.

Pictures that show hundreds of circles along the Bahada, the big alluvial wash coming down

from Sugarloaf Peak, from the White Mountains.

All those alluvial streams meshing into the alluvial plane, the alluvial fan.

That's a great word to throw around when you're talking to biologists or park rangers.

Throw in a bird name or two, and they might even let you in to their secret club.

Now, alluvium is just the rocks and the gravel and whatever else washes down from the mountains. Lots of it silt and a little

soil and sometimes chunks of gold and silver. Sometimes even gemstones, depending on the part of the world you're in.

Sometimes you can just pick the gold up off the ground.

Well, that's what placer mining is all about, collecting silver and gold and gemstones from alluvial plains, from alluvial deposits along creeks and rivers,

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