In the Hakkōda Mountains of Japan, snow encases the trees, transforming the ski slopes into a hoodoo-filled winter wonderland. Photographer Sho Shibata captured these images while journeying through the area Keep reading
Tag: aeolian processes
Racing Dunes
The deserts of Namibia are home to some of the fastest and most consistent winds in the world. As a result, they’re also home to some of the fastest-moving dunes Keep reading
How Dunes Form
On its face, the idea that sand and wind can come together to form massive mountainous dunes seems bizarre. But dunes — and their smaller cousins, ripples — are everywhere, Keep reading
Martian Flyover
Fly over a Martian crater in this incredibly detailed 8K video built from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter imagery. Like Earth’s deserts, Mars is largely shaped by wind, and we get some Keep reading
Ingenuity’s Dust Cloud
Mars is quite dusty. It periodically gets swallowed by planet-spanning dust storms, but it’s also home to regular dust devils whose size can put Earth’s to shame. Exactly how so Keep reading
Blue Dunes
This false-color image shows a Martian dune field near the northern polar cap. The image itself covers an area 30 kilometers wide, but the dune field stretches over an area Keep reading
Dunes Avoid Collisions
The speed at which a dune migrates depends on its size; smaller dunes move faster than larger ones. That speed differential implies that small dunes should frequently collide into and Keep reading
The Sand Sea’s End
The northern extent of Africa’s Namib Sand Sea ends where the reddish dunes meet the Kuiseb River and the hard, rocky land on its other side. Within the sand sea, Keep reading
Snowy Deserts
Windblown snow bears a certain resemblance to desert sands or a Martian landscape. Many of the same aeolian processes–like erosion, transport, and deposition–take place in each. The animation above shows Keep reading