Sand dunes sprawl along the coast of northeastern Brazil, sometimes extending kilometers inland.
Published Jul 11, 2010
This detailed true-color image from February 24, 2011, shows the variety of sand dunes that make up the Algodones Dunes in southeastern California.
Published May 27, 2011
Large linear dunes stretch across the Great Eastern Sand Sea of northern Algeria.
Published Apr 4, 2016
he Issaouane Erg (sand sea) is located in eastern Algeria between the Tinrhert Plateau to the north and the Fadnoun Plateau to the south. Considered to be part of the Sahara Desert, the Issaouane Erg covers an area of approximately 38,000 km2. These complex dunes form the active southwestern border of the sand sea.
Published Feb 7, 2005
This digital elevation map of the Badain Jaran Desert shows multi-generation dunes, with smaller dunes resting atop larger ones.
Published Apr 20, 2011
Complex wind patterns left these distinctive star-shapes in the sands of the Grand Erg Oriental.
Published Sep 29, 2013
One of the main reasons that rainless regions like the Sahara Desert are interesting from the perspective of landscape science is that the work of flowing water—mainly streams and rivers—becomes less important than the work of wind. Over millennia, if enough sand is available, winds can generate dunes of enormous size, arranged in regular patterns. Long, linear dunes stretch generally north to south across much of northeast Algeria, covering a vast tract (~140,000 square kilometers) of the Sahara Desert known as the Erg Oriental. Erg means “dune sea” in Arabic, and the term has been adopted by modern geologists. Spanning this image from a point on the southwest margin of the erg (image center point: 28.9°N 4.8°W) are a series of 2-kilometer-wide linear dunes, comprised of red sand. The dune chains are more than 100 meters high. The “streets” between the dunes are grayer areas free of sand.
Published Sep 11, 2006
Narrow cordons of coastal dunes stretch for hundreds of kilometers along Argentina’s coast, including the Médano Blanco dunes near the arid and windy border of Patagonia.
Published Mar 7, 2011
