Ducktown Desert Site, Tennessee

A sulfuric acid and copper producing district, in rural southeastern Tennessee, where around 30,000 acres of natural vegetation was completely denuded from the rolling hills by the toxic sulfur dioxide fumes generated by the industry. As a result, around five feet of surface soil was lost to erosion, and the area became, as described by the geographer Grady Clay, "a fantastic expanse of raw red-and-orange terrain consisting largely of ruts, ravines, washes, and exposed subsoils." The area, industrialized since the late 1800's, has been undergoing revegetation since the 1970's, though a 500-acre exemplary plot of desert remains as part of the display at the Ducktown Museum.

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