Dryland Reef

 Often there are areas of deserts where the land and its plants resemble an inland reef. There can be an overwhelming sense that the dry, prickly cactus and low-lying shrubs resemble corals or sea plants. This suggested imagery is in fact a memory the desert holds to its heart. High above the parched expanse of the southwest (most notably, Nevada and Death Valley), are the signs of what seems unimaginable in such a scorched place, the dark fossilized remnants of extinct tropical reefs. Millions of years ago, these peaks were at the bottom of the sea. Walking around desert mountains, dunes and swales everywhere is evidence of ancient seas and their thriving ecosystems. Reefs are incredible places of diversity. Recent archaeological excavations have yielded remnant tree-like branching species of shallow water corals attesting to the importance of these ancient desert reefs that have yet to be researched and explored. Abstracted reef motifs are everywhere in the desert as are fossils, vestiges of shapes and swarms of diverse groups of sponges and corals.

These remnant, archaeological environments are just as beautiful real or imagined.