Many people do not realize that the environment we live in is one of the harshest and most destructive in the entire country. Why is this? Albuquerque and most of New Mexico is a “high desert” and because of this, we experience more freeze/thaw cycles than other parts of the country. The depth of a freeze does not do as much damage as the number of cycles of freezing and thawing that occurs to a surface. In a high desert, our winter temperatures fluctuate from the low 20’s to the high 40’s between night and day. At night, the water that has melted and penetrated into the pores of any paving material, freezes and, because water expands when it freezes, it will microscopically fracture the material. These fine fissures then take on more water when they thaw and the next night, the freezing happens again. This continuous freeze/thaw cycle is what damages any paving material. Natural granite, porphyry, or quartzitic sandstones have very low absorption rates and can withstand thousands of these damaging cycles. Man made materials simply don’t have the durability of natural stone in our land of the high desert.