When filming the desert scenes taking place in the Middle East in “The Men Who Stare at Goats, actors George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges were in White Sands National Park.

In this part of the Chihuahuan Desert, however, the land forms a basin, trapping the mineral; water evaporates, leaving the gypsum behind, and wind and weather erode it over time into an ocean of ...