Volcanic islands are acidic, and their biological past is rarely preserved, but at the Mare aux Songes acidity had been buffered by alkaline coral sand blown in from the beach.
The National Park preserves alkaline lakes, sand dunes, wetlands, dry steppes and forests, surrounded by a matrix of intensively used agricultural land and forests.
In previous studies, Thind et al. (2012) found that 10 tons/ha increased the yield of wheat by up to 43.7% over the unfertilized plants in the alkaline loamy sand.
By the time the polluted river water mixes with the area's alkaline rocks and sand, it has become as salty as the ocean.
The modern highway snaked through the desert, past ocher sand dunes, alkaline dried lakes, herds of camels and even a few Kazakh round yurts.
James Fairclough, who led the excavation for the Museum of London's archaeology unit (MoLA), said: "The combination of acidic sand and alkaline water created the perfect conditions for the skeletons and wooden graves to survive, revealing remarkable details of Christian Anglo-Saxon practices".
The average reaction rate coefficients for both the alkaline batch (0.0487 h−1) and sand column (0.0466 h−1) experiments estimated the distance between the cathode and anode required to decompose 0.5 mg/L RDX to the USEPA drinking water lifetime Health Advisory level of 0.002 mg/L to be 145 and 152 cm.
James Fairclough, the lead archaeologist from the Museum of London Archaeology whose team is based in Northampton, said: "The combination of acidic sand and alkaline water created the perfect conditions for the skeletons and wooden graves to survive, revealing remarkable details of Christian Anglo-Saxon burial practices". Archaeologist Matt Champion made the initial discovery.
As a result of the saline and alkaline character of the sand, the dry air and good drainage, the human remains are in excellent conditions.
