In this Monday, July 20, 2015 photo, Bill Lattin, the Southern California Timing Association president and Speed Week race director, stands in the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. A small city of tents, trailers and thousands of visitors appears almost every August in the Utah desert to watch cars, motorcycles and anything with wheels rocket across gleaming white sheets of salt at speeds of 400 mph. But wet weather has forced the cancellation of Speed Week for the second straight year and revived a debate about whether nearby mining is depleting the Bonneville Salt Flats of their precious resource. (Photo by Rick Bowmer/AP Photo)

A train drives along a field at a salt production site at the Sasyk-Sivash lake near the city of Yevpatoria, Crimea, November 14, 2017. A saltwater lagoon known as Lake Sasyk-Sivash on Ukraine's Crimea peninsula is the source of a rare resource: pink salt. The mineral is tinted by tiny algae that produce the pigment beta-carotene. Each autumn, seasonal workers collect thousands of tons of pink salt for processing and export. (Photo by Pavel Rebrov/Reuters)

A Turkana boy herds cows as he carries a rifle in north western Kenya near the town of Kibish inside the Turkana region of the Ilemy Triangle September 26, 2014. The Turkana people have historically clashed over ethnic differences and precious resources such as fishing, pasture and fresh water with other tribes bordering their territory, such as the Dassanach from southern Ethiopia. (Photo by Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

Cordwood construction is a method of natural building that originated roughly one thousand years ago in Greece and Siberia. This method involves using pieces of wood that slightly protrude from the mortar, giving the walls an attractive appearance. Usually, the walls are made 12 to 24 inches thick. However, in some parts of Canada, the walls can be as thick as 36 inches. This method appeals to many people due to its ease of construction economy of resources. Cordwood Construction can be separated into two main types: mortar-insulation-mortar (M-I-M) and Throughwall. M-I-M is a more preferable and widely used choice as it allows for better insulating properties.

Student, Shoukria positions a stone for cutting at the Turquoise Mountain Gem cutting class on May 18, 2011, in Kabul, Afghanistan. The mineral resources of Afghanistan are relatively unexplored even with Afghanistan's mineral wealth of coal, copper, gold and iron ore, with precious and semiprecious stones, including high-quality emerald, lapis lazuli, red garnet and ruby. Given the country's remote and rugged terrain, on-going instability plus an inadequate infrastructure and transportation means that mining is still difficult. While many are trying to bring positive changes, Afghanistan's mining industry uses unregulated, primitive methods and outdated equipment. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Camels kick up clouds of sand as they race down a steep dune. The camels can reach speeds of up to 40 kilometres per hour as they descend the ten-metre tall dunes on April 20, 2022. The photos were taken by photographer Qian Guo in Naiman Banner, near the city of Tongliao in the Inner Mongolia region of northeastern China. The 58 year old said: “These are local Mongolian farmers, and two of them are a father and a son. They have more than ten camels which they farm and train”. (Photo by Qian Guo/Solent News & Photo Agency)

A woman argues with police officer during a protest in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Ulan-Ude, the regional capital of Buryatia, a region near the Russia-Mongolia border, Russia, Wednesday, April 21, 2021. Navalny's team has called for nationwide protests on Wednesday following reports that the politician's health was deteriorating in prison, where he has been on hunger strike since March 31. Russian authorities have stressed that the demonstrations were not authorized and warned against participating in them. (Photo by Anna Ogorodnik/AP Photo)

Boys pan for gold on a riverside at Iga Barriere, 25 km (15 miles) from Bunia, in the resource-rich Ituri region of eastern Congo February 16, 2009. Ituri is one of many areas of the country to have experienced bitter ethnic conflict between rival tribes in recent years. Massacres have left tens of thousands dead. It is this fighting that led U.S. authorities to take the unprecedented step of naming Congo in section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation act, which says U.S.-listed companies that source gold, tungsten, tantalum and tin from Congo or its neighbours must assure the U.S. stock exchange regulator that their business is not helping fund conflict. (Photo by Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)