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, 2011One 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, 2006Linear dunes dominate the landscape of eastern Namibia. Part of the Kalahari Desert, the dunes likely formed more than 10,000 years ago.
Published Dec 4, 2011he 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, 2005Complex wind patterns left these distinctive star-shapes in the sands of the Grand Erg Oriental.
Published Sep 29, 2013Large linear dunes stretch across the Great Eastern Sand Sea of northern Algeria.
Published Apr 4, 2016Photographs taken by astronauts on the ISS in 2003 and 2013 show the evolution of a dune field in Chad.
Published Dec 9, 2013Winds shape the sands that were left behind by an ancient river.
Published Jun 4, 2012This digital elevation map of the Badain Jaran Desert shows multi-generation dunes, with smaller dunes resting atop larger ones.
Published Apr 20, 2011White sand dunes spill across the Snake River Plain in a wide arc in this detailed, photo-like image acquired by the Advanced Land Imager on NASA’s EO-1 satellite on September 25, 2010.
Published Sep 29, 2010