Lop Nur was resurrected, and the atomic bomb test site became a granary
Lop Nur, located in southeastern Xinjiang, China, was once the second largest saltwater lake in China, but about 1,500 years ago, it dried up completely, leaving behind a barren Gobi Desert.
Legend has it that the treasure of Guloulan was hidden here, attracting countless people to explore, but all of them eventually disappeared and did not survive. For this reason, Lop Nur is also known as the "Sea of Death".
Lop Nur, which has been dry for thousands of years, has come back to life and is no longer a forbidden place of death. Hundreds of millions of Chinese were nourished, so what happened to Lop Nur that made people so happy?
To answer this question, we must explore how beautiful and terrible Lop Nur once was, and how it "rose" from the abyss of death and nourished hundreds of millions of people.
Let's unravel the mysteries of Lop Nur together and see how it has changed dramatically and how it has become an oasis that nourishes life.
The mushroom cloud in Lop Nur seems to tell the shock of China's first atomic bomb**. When it comes to Lop Nur, another story is always talked about, that is, the Pisces jade pendant.
This mysterious jade pendant is said to be able to replicate objects, which is deeply amazing. Although the authenticity of the Pisces jade pendant in folklore is questionable, Professor Pengamu's death at Lop Nur is real.
Professor Pengamu is a well-known botanist who conducted an in-depth study of the flora of the Lop Nur area in the seventies of the last century. However, local residents have developed symptoms of poisoning after eating a plant.
In order to find out the truth, the state organized a team of experts to visit Lop Nur in 1980. Unfortunately, in their search for water, they encountered extreme weather and Professor Pengamu was killed in the incident.
Lop Nur is not an auspicious place, and many experts and scholars have been buried here in order to explore its mysteries. The story of Lop Nur's mushroom cloud and Pisces jade pendant may feel terrifying and mysterious, but it should also make us reflect on how we should better protect and explore the world for the sake of scientific progress and human welfare.
Although the path of exploration is full of difficulties and challenges, it is these challenges that give us a deeper awe and understanding of the unknown.
The statue of Professor Pengamu stands in the desert of Lop Nur, and the sight of desolation is a desolate scene. Temperatures exceed 40 degrees Celsius in summer and minus 20 degrees Celsius in winter, with only 20 millimetres of annual precipitation.
To make matters worse, strong winds blow all year round, with force 8 winds for more than 60 days a year. The wind carries sand and gravel, and the sky is often difficult to see, let alone people, and even camels may struggle to survive here.
Since ancient times, countless people have longed to excavate the legendary treasures of Loulan in Lop Nur, but as the years passed, most of those who had set foot on this land did not return.
If you find human remains here, don't panic, because there are so many missing people here!
Located in the sparsely populated Lop Nur area, the Lop Nur Loulan site was once a forbidden place for herders. However, it is precisely because of this that this desert, where no grass grows, was chosen as the atomic bomb test site for our country.
In the last century, China's two national heavyweights have been successful here. However, the horrors of Lop Nur have not always been like this. More than 1,000 years ago, it was a treasure land of abundant water and plants, full of life.
A thousand years ago, Lop Nur was a thriving place from a satellite perspective. Closely connected to the ancient Loulan country, it was once a happy land for cattle and sheep, people boating on the lake, and fishing.
According to archaeological discoveries, before the 3rd century AD, the lake was rich in water, the depth was considerable, there were a large number of fish living in it, and almost every household had wood pulp, which shows the large scope of Lop Nur at that time.
Although the water in Lop Nur has always been recorded as salty and undrinkable, its former prosperity is still desirable.
Why is the Loulan route where Zhang Qian's envoy to the Western Regions passed? This is because the water in Lop Nur can only enter and not exit, and this unique natural phenomenon has led to the deposition of minerals in Lop Nur for a long time.
According to historical records, the water of the Tarim River, the Peacock River and other rivers once flowed into Lop Nur, making it second only to Qinghai Lake in terms of area. However, from the 3rd century onwards, the course of these rivers changed, the volume of water gradually decreased, and the overexploitation of Lop Nur by the Loulan people also destroyed the ecological environment here.
Over time, Lop Nur gradually shrank in size and eventually almost dried up by the 6th century AD. With the disappearance of Lop Nur, the once glorious ancient kingdom of Loulan was also buried by yellow sand.
Although Lop Nur eventually dried up, it is closely connected to the mysterious and beautiful Loulan, which still attracts countless people to visit. Due to its harsh environmental conditions, Lop Nur can only receive tourists from mid-April to mid-October each year.
Surprisingly, however, Lop Nur was "resurrected". Water appeared on the dry Gobi, and more importantly, it was no ordinary water.
Lop Nur is back to life? The former dry lake bed has reappeared in puddles. Geologists have pointed out that this may be the result of climate change, and the Lop Nur area has a cycle of about 1,500 years of dry-wet transition, indicating that Lop Nur is ushering in a relatively wet period. "
Lop Nur was once thought to have dried up completely, but in reality, its water has not completely disappeared. Some of the water evaporates into the air, while the other seeps into the ground, where it waits quietly for the right time to gush out again.
Perhaps, this is because the underground layer of Lop Nur is connected with the underground layer of the Tarim River and the Peacock River. When groundwater exceeds underground storage, Lop Nur comes back to life.
Today, Lop Nur's resurgence is a reflection of that process.
Lop Nur was once dry, but now there are signs of life. Behind all this, it may be related to global warming. The Tarim River is headwaters of the Tien Shan Mountains and the Karakoram Mountains, and in recent years, rising temperatures have accelerated the melting of alpine glaciers, which has increased the flow of the Tarim River for a short period of time, and even saturated the groundwater at the bottom of the riverbed.
This effect was also transmitted to the connected Lop Nur, where groundwater began to seep out of the ground, forming small ponds. All this is a warning of global warming, and we need to pay more attention to and protect the environment.
Lop Nur has not only reappeared as water, but also as a fertilizer back into people's lives. Lop Nur, which once provided grain and grass for Guloulan and wrote the legend of the Western Regions, has now brought new hope to people with its potash-rich brine.
The Lop Nur salt pans are the "grain" of hundreds of millions of people. Salt water, which may seem unforgiving, is actually a precious resource given by nature. The metal ions contained in it, such as sodium, potassium, and magnesium, are refined into potassium fertilizers, which are essential for agriculture.
Potassium is an indispensable element in the process of plant growth, and the operation of more than 60 enzymes is inseparable from the assistance of potassium. Without potassium, people will suffer from "hypochondriasis" and crops will fall in pieces.
Potassium deficiency can also affect the photosynthesis of plants, causing the leaves to lose their original luster and color, and turn yellow. Therefore, the salt lake of Lop Nur is not only a forbidden area for human survival, but also a precious resource endowed to us by nature.
China's agriculture has a huge demand for potash fertilizer, but in the past, there was only one salt lake to produce potash fertilizer, and the market gap was large, so China had to import potash fertilizer. Fortunately, potassium-containing brine and soil are now found in Lop Nur, and potash fertilizer can be obtained only by exploitation, reducing dependence on imported potash fertilizer.
Because potash is not easy to evaporate with water, potash remains in the soil for a long time to form potash ore. These potash ores can be mined, dissolved in water and refined to obtain potash salts and make potash fertilizers.
According to the exploration, the potash reserves in the north of Lop Nur reached 2500 million tons, if mined, can be used together with the salt lake in Qaidam to provide security for China's agriculture.
In the Chinese market, there is a chemical fertilizer that is favored by farmers - Lop Nur potash. Produced at the Lop Nur salt mine production base, the potash is cheaper than previous imports and has been widely sold across the country.
According to statistics, the annual output of potash fertilizer in the country is about 4 million tons, of which more than 3 million tons of potash fertilizer comes from Lop Nur and Qaidam, and it can be said that the potash fertilizer used in almost every province may come from Lop Nur.
Lop Nur potash fertilizer is the food that nourishes hundreds of millions of people and is the nutrition of hundreds of millions of people in our country. To say that it feeds us is not an exaggeration at all!