Word: desert
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...grease not just for diplomatic outreach but for South Yemen's attempts at bootstrap development. In 1987 Soviet geologists discovered a little of the black gold beneath the desert sands near Shabwa. When the first wells begin gushing in 1990, the area may produce up to 70,000 barrels a day. That small but steady output will bring $240 million a year into South Yemen's treasury...
Necessity has spawned invention in marginal farmlands around the world. The Chinese, threatened by a desert that is spreading at the rate of 600 sq. mi. a year, are planting a "green Great Wall" of grasses, shrubs and trees 4,350 miles across their northern region. In Peru archaeologists have revived a pre- Columbian agricultural system that involves dividing fields into patterns of alternating canals and ridges. The canals ensure a steady supply of water, and the nitrogen-rich sediment that gathers on their floors provides fertilizer for the crops...
...searing Mojave Desert. About 2,400 U.S. Marines conduct night maneuvers near the Twentynine Palms Base in California. Among them is Jason Rother, a 19-year-old lance corporal shipped in from North Carolina's Camp Lejeune for a special training exercise. While most of the Marines directing convoys are posted around the desert in pairs, Rother, inexplicably, is sent out to guide troop movements without an assigned buddy...
Sept. 1. Almost two days after Rother went into the desert, he is reported missing. The Marine Corps launches a 1,758-man search, complete with helicopters and jeeps equipped with infrared thermal imaging devices, to track him down. The searchers find Rother's helmet, flak jacket and backpack. They also discover an arrow, laid out on the ground with stones and pointing southeast, that Rother may have constructed to indicate the direction in which he was traveling. But after three days, the search party fails to find him. A month later, a second Marine-led search party...
...disappearance, a third search party, composed of 130 civilian and Marine volunteers organized by the San Bernardino sheriff's office, comes across the corporal's M-16 rifle, camouflage clothes and ID card. Not far away, they soon discover dry human bones, presumably those of Rother, scattered across the desert floor. Struggling for survival in daytime temperatures that reached 120 degrees F, the doughty Marine may have made his way almost back to the base in Twentynine Palms. The remains are found only a heartbreaking two miles away...