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The mesoscale structure of aeolian sand transport determines a variety of natural phenomena studied in planetary and Earth science. We analyze it theoretically beyond the mean-field level, based on the grain-scale transport kinetics and…
Starting from the physics on the grain scale, we develop a simple continuum description of aeolian sand transport. Beyond popular mean-field models, but without sacrificing their computational efficiency, it accounts for both dominant grain…
Windblown sand creates multiscale bedforms on Earth, Mars, and other planetary bodies. According to conventional wisdom, decameter-scale dunes and decimeter-scale ripples emerge via distinct mechanisms on Earth: a hydrodynamic instability…
Aeolian sand beds exhibit regular patterns of ripples resulting from the interaction between topography and sediment transport. Their characteristics have been so far related to reptation transport caused by the impacts on the ground of…
Desert surfaces are typically non uniform, with individual sand dunes generally surrounded by gravel or non-erodible beds. Similarly, beaches vary in composition and moisture that enhances cohesion between the grains. These bed…
Predicting transport rates of windblown sand is a central problem in aeolian research, with implications for climate, environmental, and planetary sciences. Though studied since the 1930s, the underlying many-body dynamics is still…
Periodic sediment patterns have been observed on Earth in riverbeds and sand and snow deserts, but also in other planetary environments. One of the most ubiquitous patterns, familiar wind or 'impact' ripples, adorns sand beaches and arid…
Aeolian sediment transport is observed to occur on Mars as well as other extraterrestrial environments, generating ripples and dunes as on Earth. The search for terrestrial analogues of planetary bedforms, as well as environmental…
Many sedimentary rocks are formed by migration of sand ripples. Thin layers of coarse and fine sand are present in these rocks, and understanding how layers in sandstone are created has been a longstanding question. Here, we propose a…
We present an analytical model of aeolian sand transport. The model quantifies the momentum transfer from the wind to the transported sand by providing expressions for the thickness of the saltation layer and the apparent surface roughness.…
We formulate a continuum model for aeolian sand ripples consisting of two species of grains: a lower layer of relatively immobile clusters, with an upper layer of highly mobile grains moving on top. We predict analytically the ripple…
Subaqueous and aeolian bedforms are ubiquitous on Earth and other planetary environments. However, it is still unclear which hydrodynamical mechanisms lead to the observed variety of morphologies of self-organized natural patterns such as…
We present a continuous model capable of demonstrating some salient features of aeolian sand ripples: the realistic asymmetric ripple shape, coarsening of ripple field at the nonlinear stage of ripple growth, saturation of ripple growth for…
Natural wind-eroded soils contain a mixture of particle sizes. However, models for aeolian saltation are typically derived for sediment bed surfaces containing only a single particle size. To nonetheless treat natural mixed beds, models for…
Sand patches are one of the precursors to early-stage protodunes and occur widely in both desert and coastal aeolian environments. Here we show field evidence of a mechanism to explain the initiation of sand patches on non-erodible…
We analyze theoretically the dynamics of aeolian sand ripples. In order to put the study in the context we first review existing models. We argue on the local character of sand ripple formation. Using a hydrodynamical model we derive a…
As winds blow over sand, grains are mobilized and reorganized into bedforms such as ripples and dunes. In turn, sand transport and bedforms affect the winds themselves. These complex interactions between winds and sediment render modeling…
Three phenomena are involved in sand movement: erosion, wind transport, and sedimentation. This paper presents a comprehensive easy-to-use multiphase model that include all three aspects with a particular attention to situations in which…
Ripples are the most fundamental and ubiquitous aeolian bedforms formed on sandy surfaces, but their small size and fast response times make them inherently difficult to measure. However, these attributes also make ripples excellent flow…
We introduce order parameter models for describing the dynamics of sand ripple patterns under oscillatory flow. A crucial ingredient of these models is the mass transport between adjacent ripples, which we obtain from detailed numerical…