Related papers: Diverse patterns of pebbles on sand on Mars and Ea…
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…
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…
Spatiotemporal patterns in nature, such as ripples or dunes, formed by a fluid streaming over a sandy surface show complex behavior despite their simple forms. Below the surface, the granular structure of the sand particles is subject to…
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…
We present a new database of $>$300 layer-orientations from sedimentary mounds on Mars. These layer orientations, together with draped landslides, and draping of rocks over differentially-eroded paleo-domes, indicate that for the…
The linear stability analysis of the equations governing the evolution of a flat sand bed submitted to a turbulent shear flow predicts that the wavelength $\lambda$ at which the bed destabilises to form dunes should scale with the drag…
When we look at the world around us, we see both organized (also called ordered) and disorganized (also called disordered) arrangements of things. Carefully-tiled floors and brick walls have organized and repeating patterns, but the stars…
Much of the surface of Mars is covered by dunes, ripples, and other features formed by the blowing of sand by wind, known as saltation. In addition, saltation loads the atmosphere with dust aerosols, which dominate the Martian climate. We…
The wind-driven hopping motion of sand grains, known as saltation, forms dunes and ripples and ejects fine dust particles into the atmosphere on both Earth and Mars. While the wind speed at which saltation is initiated, the fluid threshold,…
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…
Dune fields are commonly associated with periodic patterns that are among the most recognizable landscapes on Earth and other planetary bodies. However, in zones of limited sediment supply, where periodic dunes elongate and align in the…
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…
Dunes are bedforms found on sandy terrains shaped by fluid flow on Earth, Mars, and other celestial bodies. Despite their prevalence, understanding dune dynamics at the grain scale is challenging due to the vast number of grains involved.…
Wind-blown sand dunes are both a consequence and a driver of climate dynamics; they arise under persistently dry and windy conditions, and are sometimes a source for airborne dust. Dune fields experience extreme daily changes in…
We apply a model for sand dunes to calculate formation of dunes on Mars under the present Martian atmospheric conditions. We find that different dune shapes as those imaged by Mars Global Surveyor could have been formed by the action of…
Mars lacks a global magnetic field, and instead possesses small-scale crustal magnetic fields, making its magnetic environment fundamentally different from intrinsic magnetospheres like those of Earth or Saturn. Here we report the discovery…
We present the first calculation of saltation transport and dune formation on Mars and compare it to real dunes. We find that the rate at which grains are entrained into saltation on Mars is one order of magnitude higher than on Earth. With…
Dust and sand motion are a common sight on Mars. Understanding the interaction of atmosphere and Martian soil is fundamental to describe the planet's weather, climate and surface morphology. We set up a wind tunnel to study the lift of a…
The shapes of flat pebbles may be characterized in terms of the statistical distribution of curvatures measured along their contours. We illustrate this new method for clay pebbles eroded in a controlled laboratory apparatus, and also for…
The transport of sand and dust by wind is a potent erosional force, creates sand dunes and ripples, and loads the atmosphere with suspended dust aerosols. This article presents an extensive review of the physics of wind-blown sand and dust…