between them and the first groups of tourists are approaching the charas sands. each person has to improvise a way of walking over the difficult terrain where the tiger ends and the desert starts the walk ahead of them is fascinating yet tiring the key to success here is to ignore the burning sun and insect bites of the taiga. there is no complete explanation as to the deserts origin one theory is that it was produced by centuries of winds eroding the sediment of an ancient lake. the lake dried out about fifteen thousand years ago and its form of bed was walked on by packs of mammoths and woolly rhinoceros tusks keep turning up in the area to this day. charles landscape is a breathtaking combination of north and south brought together as if by magic. there is no other desert like it anywhere else in the world these fabulous sights completed by the impressive skyline of the kadar mountain range the chara desert itself is quite small but just over fifty square kilometers. some members of the talkers who post stayed behind in the count there completing preparations

were once the homes of his neighbors the houses are gone now there remains a covered with layers of sand and the people moved out a long time ago. but used to be a house right here it got buried by the sand there were three other homes next to it another house was here. i remember it was turned on its side almost all price. that's my house there. it's still standing but it won't last long this isn't much of a sandra ft the wind usually brings much more than covers the house up to its roof sometimes the windows are blocked off and there's no use trying to clear the side of the house you would need a bulldozer but you can't get one close enough because that would make the house collapse. these are not the dunes of the zahara in fact they're found be on the arctic circle in the permafrost of russia's north how did this place come to be deserted. an airplane pierces the low lying clouds and begins to descend inside its baggage laden cabin passengers of patiently waiting to land exhausted from turbulence everyone on board knows that flying to the village of showing a is always risky the white

when the pilot sees the green patchwork of the arctic plains give way to yellow swathes of sand he knows that he has arrived at the world's northernmost doesn't every incoming airplane is an event for the village on wednesdays local residents gather at the airfield some travel by foot others drive customized all terrain vehicles that are the only machines traversing both the sams am marshlands. the village of showing us sits on cape can in no us washed by the white see it lies beyond the arctic circle one thousand four hundred kilometers north of moscow this tiny settlement in the middle of nowhere is unique fifty years ago the sand pit. it has been waging a relentless offensive against the villages ever since local residents were totally unprepared and houses were evacuated china's population plummeted from two thousand people to a mere three hundred seventy rule number one here is not to shut your front door at night otherwise it might be completely blocked up in the morning. local resident pilcher my league and as many household chores to take care of the most important one as waterin

to shore with barely any trees on the tundra the sands advance could not be held back. unless your rock came to work in showing a in one nine hundred forty seven she only planned to stay for three years but ended up living here ever since she remembers the night when the sea seemed to term and to get revenge on them. a few years storm struck in one thousand nine hundred sixty three taken away all the seafront constructions of the village all the warehouses and there was a street there that was blown away all the houses were destroyed it all disappeared after that life in the village started to slow down we had cows and horses back then today there are none everything has been taken away the place used to be really exciting people worked into shifts i remember walking through the village she would see people dancing in the afternoon and at night it was so much fun to hang back then. the damage from fishing is just one possible cause for the sounds coming here the residents simply continue to live out their lives in this quietly dying place now classified as an environmen

but if you know this place well enough you know right over this lip of white sands,

the sky is infinite, the sand is infinite. it's hard to keep your focus because you are constantly using peripheral vision looking all around you. it doesn't matter which way you walk after a while, you are just wandering. and so on the first trip out there, we didn't get to the sea because we just ended up wandering. it happens out there. you have a plan but the landscape becomes beautiful in a way that you weren't expecting and you start disappearing into it. you start forgetting why you are going in one direction. you start thinking, no, i just want to see that shadow over there and spend time there and then i want to see the next shadow and the next. it took 3 trips actually before we got to the sea. and all over at the edges of the dunes and sometimes even out in the middle of the dunes where you get into a deep hole, you will find a broken ceramic ojalla, you will find a sea shell that somebody carried in there, you will pick up the shell going what were you doing out here, why were you walking in this place, were you se

this is some oil sand that i picked up on one of my visits up there.parate the oil from the sand inside it, it's an energy intensive process. you use hydrogen to heat water, the water basically melts and washes and separates the sand from the thick heavy oil embedded in it. once the sand and oil are separated it looks like this. this second vile over here. a thick black oil and the oil has to be further processed into this a synthetic crude oil, a light high quality low sulphur form of crude oil that can be easily refined into things like gas lynn, diesel, heating oil and as you can see the synthetic oil that's produced from the oil sands is gold in color rather than the black that you normally expect. but the extra step of upgrading that vies uskus-like molasses u more carbon dioxide than drilling and transporting conventional oil from texas, venezuela or saudi arabia. and that process, obviously, is more complicated than drilling a hole in the ground. it uses more energy and traditionally open pit mine. that's me up in the oil sands. it is done in ar

until i could see others and i blew the sand away and i could see the rim of a broken pot. once i saw that, my eye was much sharper and i could see the details around me. i could see a small community, a family of maybe 12 had lived here. when i looked up into the cliff, i saw stacks of rock behind a little spall of the cliff that had stuck out and i realized there was a granary up there. i immediately started for it, climbing hand over hand up the cliff base. my breath tasted hot with discovery. i had found a secret. in past travels i had seen many granaries belonging to the anastasi but they had all been broken open by pot hunters or even by the residents themselves. this one had been built so no one would see it, like an attic accessed through a hidden floor. the structure was rectangular, like a cupboard. i touched its face with probing, diagnostic fingers, measuring it my eyes. 3 feet tall, 2 feet wide and 3 feet deep. i got up on my haunches and lightly dusted off the granaries roof which was undamaged. for 3,000 years not a breeze had entered this chamber, not an ink

of her patients call on her with heart problems and physiological disorders from walking on uneven sand day after day to day galina has to make a special house call the village has a new resident two week old step his mother brought him from the city of our candles to settle down and. why does he cry b.c. coping ok he says yes we born if you were born a big baby does he burst feet ok yes yes after if you didn't put him up right in lay him down on one side stick to the diagnosis alter spicy food stay healthy out come to see you tomorrow bye bye. yes i've been here for six years when i arrived in two thousand and five there was only one baby and a village two thousand and seven story spike in the birth rate it was the year when the diesel power plant been done we did not have lights for a month back them humans and it ended up boosting the birth rate what else could the young people do ten babies were born at a time today the rate is now relatively normal but there are still more and more children every year. the lighthouse is the pride of the locals and the main symbol of the village it

sand born was a mapping company that was part of a fire insurance program that went around cities all over the united states and maybe beyond and actually, physically, mapped by hand every building, hold that up for me -- every building and every out building and set of stairs and updated these map's on an annual basis walking around the city and unfortunately someone had the mistakes of canceling the subscription ten or twelve years back but we have these historical map's and their fantastic in many ways. they don't give you a full history of the building but at the snapshot, i think this was in the 40s. you can look that building and actually see, if you look carefully, you can see the number of floors. two floors with an addition in the back and a bunch of an abbreviationses and the big key in front of the thing and the one with the little stairs. so how is that important to you. san francisco has amendment to the code that says if you have a stairs and a deck on your back porch and you want to replace them you can replace them in their original configuration if they were properlyi

tom parsons down in the glam of sand dunes in california.sand almost looks like brown water. >> that will do it for today's show. we'll leave you with footage from the glamest sand dunes in california. enjoy. we'll see you tomorrow.

tom parsons down in the glam of sand dunes in california. the sand almost looks like brown water. >> that will do it for today's show. we'll leave you with footage from the glamest sand dunes in california. enjoy. we'll see you tomorrow. >>> the harford county teen charged with killing his father appears in court today. find out why a judge denied him bail. >>> are you planning on a winter getaway. find out why this is the time to book that flight. >>> right now a man in a wheelchair is in shock trauma after being stuck beneath a train at the saratoga train station. we have no word on his condition. it's not clear how the man got stuck. we'll continue to update it on abc2 news as well as abc2news.com. >>> now to the weather. you're looking at 95 and 100. it's a dreary commute. the big question everybody wants to know is just how long it will stick around. let's check in

of the historic occupation when the inland sand dunes were basically leveled in sand was used to fill the towards the bay area for occupation in the 19th century. so we have these three zones of interest that are under the terminal. then we used records of existing sites, known pre-historic sites to areas where there may be fines within the area of the project -- finds within the area of the project, which in this case there were not. in this case there are some sites neighboring near the coast, and that means there may be other within the transit center area. we basically use of predictive model to identify where we need to look. we dead use historical maps. here you see the 1853 coast survey showing a good part of the project area is in the way in a cove -- buena cove. they were all under water during the gold rush. that means the areas where we might find ships that were abandoned during the gold rush comment on bond -- on the end blocks, and this is our number if system, block 10 the main part of the current construction areas, you can see a number of dwellings through that area.

south carolina welcomes the gop presidential hopefuls with a tribute in sand. sand.and get up to 1.75% cash back for just about every purchase. learn more and apply today at pnc.com/cashbuilder. pnc bank. for the achiever in you. as they begin preparations for sunday's afc championship game, the ravens know they're up against it... going to play the patriots in foxborough in january is a very tough thing, and the odds reflect that..the ravens go in as 7 and a half point underdogs. underdogs... but dont get ready to carve their names on the lombardi trophy just yet...the patriots had the afc's best record at 13-3 and wippd out denver in last week's playoff opener, but remember this?two years ago, the ravens wiped out the pats...in foxborough..in the playoffs...that made them know they could do it, and they are embracing their underdogs status... elsewhere... linebacker terrell suggs has been named afc defensive player of the year..not the big one, which is announced february 4th, but rather one awarded by the nfl 101 awards, which is voted on by nfl media...suggs led

that's why it's called tar sands, you've got tarry stuff micked with sand.ost: are the canadians refining it? guest: they are refining a lot of it in canada. traditionally that's what's been done. it's a newer move to have the raw stuff brought to the u.s. and refined here, mostly because they found it ended up being more expensive for the oil companies to build new refineries in canada since the existing ones are almost at capacity and have turned to the midwest to take tar sands oil and now to the gulf coast. host: next call comes from sal in holbrooke, new york. democrat. caller: i've got a question, i've got three questions. somebody has to look this up. in 1985, you talk about gas, there was a guy invented two cars, one got 85 miles per gallon, the other got 65 miles per gallon. why won't -- were gas companies tai loued to buy this up and make it disappeared. the other thing, i understand why iraq has nuclear weapons, all the gas and oil we bought there over the years helped them. i don't know why we're not drilling here in the united states. you can lo

. >> reporter: echoing sound mountain is a massive sand dune. the caves extend over a 1.6 kilometer stretch along the dunes' eastern cliffs. construction of the caves began in the late fourth century. the site is made up of 735 individual grottoes. inside one of them is a statue of buddah more than 30 meters tall. there are 2,100 other statues and 45,000 square meters of murals. the caves have survived under a succession of dynasties and conquere conquerers. in 1987, unesco declared the area a world heritage site. since then, it has become an increasingly popular with tourists. the number of visitors last year reached 700,000. >> translator: i've always wanted to visit. i was extremely moved. the caves are interesting from both an educational and cultural standpoint. >> translator: the caves demonstrate the continuity of thousands of years of chinese culture. the heritage is well preserved and can be passed along to future generations. >> reporter: people in china have been fighting against the wind and sand blowing from the desert to conserve t

the project would have carried crude from canada's oil sands ...to the texas gulf coastbut the obama administration says a deadline imposed by congress did not give enough time to study the environmental impact of the 17- hundred mile-long pipeline. concerns were raised in nebraska that the proposed route would enganger a sensitive aquifer below the state's sand hills region."it was the voices of the rancherss and the farmees who said, wait a second this pipeline is too risky.""because of concerns expressed by numerous republican governor of nebraska - it was decided that an alternate route through nebraska was necessary. the choosing of that alternate route has not even been completed yet." "stop the pipeline. yes we ccn!"the administration was facing added pressure to reject tte project from environmental protesters.but the state department has already indicated it expects the company spearheading the project -- transcanada -- to reapply for approval.i'' ninette sosa reporting. the white house had tried to delay a decision on the project until next year ... after the presidential e

it's called oil sand. the sand is muddy with oil.you have to boil water using hydrogen and basically melt the oil out of the sand. that uses a lot of energy and is traditionally more polluting than digging a holy straight in the ground and seeing with that. but that be be overcome through nolg and all sorts of things and playing the pipeline in less dangerous areas or less sensitive areas. the issue is we are buying what a lot of americans think are dirty types of oil from canada, and that's what has people annoyed. i just want to reach over here for a second, brooke. i want to show it to you because i've got a bottle that i brought up when i was in canada. >> do you keep this stuff on your desk? >> i clearly haven't had need to open it for some time, but basically here it is. this is oil sand. i don't know how well you can see this, but basically i can crumble it, and it's sand, and it basically looks like you're holding tar. you have to get the oil out of this. if you smell it, it's oil. what happens it when you process it, it gets

look at this, mount myrtle. 525 tons of sand and six days to finish this sand creation.hey probably wish that jon huntsman had said something about dropping out before they finished up. it is good that is made out of sand. >> they look pretty accurate. >> more candidates will be dropping out before it is all said and done. >> tomorrow, back to sunshine and cool weather but where we should be this time of year. late into the day thursday and friday night but some snow flurries and by saturday, a system will command from the southwest. depending on the cold air is in place, we may face a brief wintry mix. that is a possibility we will keep an eye on we will update you in the next few days. >> thanks much for joining us this midday an

as if it were only a sand box, a few worthless grains of sand. i'll cut for you the last swathe of blue from the sky, sever my and if you'll let me, but for 5 minutes more, leave me to sleep without the knowledge of war. a kanun weeps near the funeral of music. having been occupied, notes mourn for the loss of their song. i am for a concert of horses, the origin of gazelle leapt up from the heart of al gubungi. have you made small steps into the desert within us or listened for the gutterals longed deep within our throats, you would have come bearing gifts. i have nothing in red that i would not abide in green. el batanabi wrote the heart of our silken tanab, what need have we for you? no poem has ever enough red but that its blood might river beneath the veins of its people. beneath the desert sun, one man by one man by one man breathes six. thousands of tons wrung sonorous from the sky. where is god? black-eyed woman, the street dogs are running wild. will you save me? simple white ignorance, even the desert has gone into hiding. there is no mo