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How did the "resurrected" Lop Nur do it?
At the end of the last century, Lop Nur, once China's second-largest saltwater lake, had dried up for thousands of years, and suddenly water sources reappeared in a few decades.
What happened?
The ancient kingdom of Loulan and Lop Nur.
Lop Nur, also known as Loulan Lake, is named after an ancient country that lived on its southeast shore, and of course it can also be understood that Lop Nur became the "water source" of this ancient country.
We can look at the relationship between the ancient kingdom of Loulan and Lop Nur through history, the ancient kingdom of Loulan was an important country in the ancient Western Regions of the mainland, and belonged to one of the six countries of the Western Regions.
It was founded around 180 B.C. and flourished for nearly 600 years before disappearing into history.
This ancient country has a long history, it was a kingdom during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and there are not many records about it in history, but researchers have found that the famous scenery of the poets of the Northern and Southern Dynasties period of China is a record of this country.
The rise and fall of nations are inextricably linked to the geography around them.
In terms of the geographical environment of Loulan country, Lop Nur is its most important water source, the ancients once said that "under Yanran Mountain" Loulan "people, the end of the world is singing and traveling", the distant frontier, the people of Loulan country are Lop Nur who accept the gift of nature for nature.
During the period when Lop Nur was well watered, the Loulan people could live and thrive here, and relying on the water of this lake brought the whole country to its heyday, but as the years passed, time continued to change all this.
The water source in the vast desert gradually decreased over time, and Lop Nur became dry, and the Loulan people initially thought it was just a natural law, so they continued to live here until the water source of Lop Nur almost dried up, and the Loulan people had to migrate westward.
This phenomenon is not a miracle, the influence of natural laws on life cannot be artificially changed, and the country of Loulan has experienced changes in different periods in the past ten centuries.
While water sources are drying up with climate change, there are also some foreign invasions, which is undoubtedly a fatal blow to this small country.
With the decline of population, economic depression, and the tranquility of life gone, the Loulan Kingdom finally disappeared in history, and their stories have become legends passed down by people.
"Back from the dead".
After Lop Nur has dried up for thousands of years, water sources suddenly reappeared, just like the sentence in "Spring and Autumn Zuo Biography": "The mountains are not tired of being high, the sea is not tired of being deep, Zhou Gong is spitting and feeding, and the world is in the heart."
Why is there suddenly a water source again, in the past, Lop Nur was so abundant that the area was even comparable to the Amazon jungle, which is known as the "lungs of the earth".
But the good times did not last long, and the water source of Lop Nur soon became less bright than before, and in modern times, Lop Nur has completely dried up, and the lakebed has become a desert.
It was not until after the founding of the People's Republic of China that after decades of exploration and drilling research, we finally found the reason for the disappearance of the water source of Lop Nur.
In the process of Lop Nur drying up, there are many reasons, one of which is that the mainland's awareness of environmental protection has not yet been raised.
The ancients had a saying: "Dive into the night with the wind, moisturize things silently", which is naturally a magical power.
Just as the stars and moon in the night sky are nature's gifts to mankind when night falls.
The forces of nature are omnipresent, pervasive, and immeasurable, and cannot be changed by human beings.
Around Lop Nur, there were some inhabitants who lived here in ancient times, and human beings began to have some exploration of nature, and with the establishment of the country, many people wanted a better life, so they would explore the distance, migrate north and south, and gradually formed the ethnic minorities we see now.
These ethnic minorities settled around Lop Nur, supported themselves, and changed the surrounding ecological environment, and as the population increased, they changed their way of life according to the laws of nature, gradually forming the "Silk Road" we see now.
Not only did they have a thriving trade on this road, but more importantly, they combined the experience they had accumulated over thousands of years with the new explorations brought by the foreign tribes to form a new mode of survival.
With the continuous development of the economy, some foreigners repeatedly wanted to invade and occupy, but fortunately, the border defense was strong, and the war did not cause a large area of death in Lop Nur.
It wasn't until the last century that oil began to appear in the desert, and although the technology was perfect, the exploitation of resources was also increasing, and no one could have imagined that there would be large potash deposits beneath Lop Nur.
Under the environmental technology of the time, the extraction of potash was to soak it in brine, and the potash would naturally precipitate, and this brine came from Lop Nur.
After the potash was raised, the remaining brine would naturally gather together, coupled with the impact of human beings on the environment over the years, the brine condensed in Lop Nur gradually began to form a lake, and the movement of the earth's crust made the lake slowly larger, and finally formed the Lop Nur that is now "resurrected".
Potassium salts.
The re-emergence of Lop Nur is really good news for the mainland, like a timely rain, the lake that was once dry now has a source of water again, and the future will be endless.
Potassium salt is very familiar to us in life, it is a kind of condiment in our life.
But its role is not limited to this, in agriculture its role is immeasurable.
In the growth process of crops, the fertility of the soil is very important, and potash is a vital inorganic fertilizer, which can significantly improve the fertility of the soil, so that the harvest of crops is greatly improved, and more importantly, potassium salt is one of the most worry-free types of inorganic fertilizer, it will not be lost with the passage of soil, and will not destroy the composition of the soil.
The refining of potash not only improves the water source of Lop Nur, but also provides an important potash fertilizer for agriculture, boosting the fertility of the soil, leading to a significant increase in crop yields and hopefully turning China into the homeland of rice.
In addition, potash has many other uses, and it can be used as an industrial raw material in a wide range of applications in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and food industries.
epilogue
The resurrection of Lop Nur at the end of the last century is undoubtedly a new beginning for this land that gave birth to life.
But we can't help but wonder, is Lop Nur's rebirth accidental or inevitable?
We don't know, but making good use of it is an exploration that we should undertake.
In the future, we should cherish this land more and strengthen its protection, and at the same time, we should also explore and make rational use of the resources on this land, so as to provide more help for the agricultural and industrial development of the mainland.
In addition, the rebirth of Lop Nur has also brought us a lot of new thoughts, such as whether the local ecological environment will be changed, and how the relationship between humans and nature will develop.
At the same time, we should also pay more attention to and study the problem of desertification, and do our part to protect the earth on which we depend.
Today's Lop Nur is like a bright pearl, shining with endless light, and its rebirth is not only a miracle of life, but also a symbol of hope.