Editing Melange (Dune) (section)

===Sources===
In ''Dune'', there is only one source of melange: the sands of the planet Arrakis, colloquially known as Dune,<ref name="SR 2021"/><ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.wired.com/story/dune-sandworm-vfx/|title=How the ''Dune'' VFX and Sound Teams Made Sandworms From Scratch|first=Angela|last=Watercutter|magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]|date=October 25, 2021|access-date=November 12, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220428081100/https://www.wired.com/story/dune-sandworm-vfx/|archive-date=April 28, 2022|url-status=live}}</ref> and millennia later called simply "Rakis".<ref name="Heretics"/> Herbert notes in ''Dune'' that a pre-spice mass is "the stage of fungusoid wild growth achieved when water is flooded into the excretions of [[Little Makers]]",<ref name="Mass">{{cite book |last=Herbert |first=Frank  |title=Dune |url=https://archive.org/details/dune0000herb |url-access=registration |chapter=Terminology of the Imperium: Pre-Spice Mass |year=1965 }}</ref> the "half-plant–half-animal deep-sand vector of the Arrakis [[sandworm (Dune)|sandworm]]".<ref>{{cite book |last=Herbert |first=Frank |title=Dune |url=https://archive.org/details/dune0000herb |url-access=registration |chapter=Terminology of the Imperium: Little Maker |year=1965}}</ref> Gases are produced which result in "a characteristic 'blow', exchanging the material from deep underground for the matter on the surface above it."<ref name="Mass"/> This blow is explosive in nature, erupting with enough force to kill anyone in the vicinity of it. Frank Herbert describes such a spice blow in the following passage from ''Dune'':<ref name="Dune"/>
{{blockquote|Then he heard the sand rumbling. Every [[Fremen]] knew the sound, could distinguish it immediately from the noises of worms or other desert life. Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of [[carbon dioxide]] was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous "blow" with a dust whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the sand for whatever lay on the surface.}}
Herbert writes that the pre-spice mass, "after exposure to sun and air, becomes melange".<ref name="Mass"/> He later indicates its color in ''Children of Dune'', when Leto II passes "the leprous blotches of violet sand where a spiceblow had erupted".<ref name="Children"/>

Collecting the melange is hazardous in the extreme, since rhythmic activity on the desert surface of Arrakis attracts the worms, which can be up to 400 meters (1,300 feet) in length and are capable of swallowing a mining crawler whole. Thus, the mining operation essentially consists of vacuuming it from the surface with a vehicle called a [[Harvester (Dune)|harvester]] until a worm comes, at which time an aircraft known as a [[Carryall (Dune)|carryall]] lifts the mining vehicle to safety. The Fremen, who have learned to co-exist with the sandworms in the desert, harvest the spice manually for their own use and for smuggling off-planet.<ref name="Dune"/>

Within the 1500 years between the events of ''God Emperor of Dune'' (1981) and ''Heretics of Dune'' (1984), the [[Bene Tleilax|Tleilaxu]] discover an artificial method of producing the spice in their [[axlotl tank]]s, previously used only to create [[ghola]]s.<ref name="Heretics"/> It is noted in ''Heretics of Dune'' that "[f]or every milligram of melange produced on Rakis, the Bene Tleilax tanks produced long tons".<ref name="Heretics"/> The technology "had broken the Rakian monopoly on the spice"<ref name="Heretics"/> but is not fully successful in pushing natural melange out of the marketplace.