When a spacecraft comes in for a landing (or a tag similar to what OSIRIS-REx did), there’s a turbulent jet that points straight into a bed of particles. How those Keep reading
Tag: erosion
Frozen Wind-Sculpted Sands
On the cold, wind-swept beaches of Lake Michigan, the sands sometimes turn into a landscape of miniature hoodoos. Strong winds erode the frozen sand into these shapes, which last only Keep reading
“Ruin of the Tides”
As tides and waves flow back and forth over a beach, they erode the sandy shore. Here photographer Michael Shainblum captures the streaks and rivulets left by a falling tide. Keep reading
How Sinkholes Form
Growing up in the Ozarks, I explored my fair share of caves and sinkholes. These geological features form when flowing groundwater erodes soil, sand, and even rock underground. The Ozark Keep reading
Martian Polar Troughs
Mars‘s northern pole is capped by a spiral-like pattern of deep troughs that are covered by carbon dioxide ice in winter but visible from orbit in summer. A new study Keep reading
A Macro View of Weathering
Water constantly weathers sedimentary rock, both physically — through abrasion — and chemically — through dissolution and recrystallization. Now researchers have gotten their first view of this weathering at the Keep reading
Coastal Erosion
The same dynamic forces that make coastlines fascinating create perennial headaches for engineers trying to maintain coastlines against erosion. This Practical Engineering video discusses some of the challenges of coastal Keep reading
Uncovering Erosion Patterns
Gypsum and limestone cliffs sometimes form patterns of long, parallel grooves known as rillenkarren. Recent research shows that these patterns form when a thin layer of water flows over a Keep reading
Dissolving Caramel
In nature, erosion patterns are driven by the interactions of flow and topography. Here, researchers study that process in the lab by placing an inclined block of caramel in quiescent Keep reading
Colorful Tides
This false-color satellite image — the recent winner of NASA Earth Observatory’s Tournament Earth 2020 — shows sands and seaweed off the coast of the Bahamas. Ocean currents and tides Keep reading