May 3, 2022

Historical wind and modern wind

May 3, 2022 I don’t typically have much time for these posts anymore. The pandemic seems to have changed everything. But sometimes I need to remind myself why I do this for a living. Going to look through Mars’ gorgeous […]
March 29, 2021

Once covered, now revealed

March 29, 2021 Mars is such a fun place. We’re finding out that it’s got oodles of geologic history. It’s got layers deposited by wind and water and lava, altered in place (sometimes many times), then eroded again by wind […]
February 1, 2021

Both wind-carved *and* ancient

1 February, 2021 Are we tired of the pandemic yet? My kids haven’t gone to an actual school since last March. Fortunately we’re all healthy. I’m able to do most of my work, but it’s not easy. So let’s go […]
December 16, 2020

The zebra dunes of the martian subarctic

16 December, 2020 This year I haven’t had time to write many blog posts. That’s a shame, because they’re what often reminds me of how amazing Mars is (and by extension, the Earth, and all the other worlds out there). […]
September 2, 2020

Dune on a hill

Sept. 2, 2020 Dunes don’t usually form on hills. They’re made of sand, which is moved by wind (and water and ice) and tends to linger where it gets stuck. You probably know this intimately if you’ve spent time at […]
July 17, 2020

Those crazy southern polar dunes

July 17, 2020 A couple months ago I wrote a blog post about defrosting dunes in Jeans crater, some wild southern polar dunes on Mars. Well it’s been that time of year on Mars, so I’m going to show some […]
June 15, 2020

The new crater

June 15, 2020 Utopia Planitia is an ancient plain in the northern lowlands of Mars, thought to be made of volcanic rocks that were buried, more than 3 billion years ago, by sediments carried by water coming down from the […]
June 8, 2020

Hills with tails

June 8, 2020 No long descriptions or explanations today, just a pretty picture of a lee dune (the dark rippled finger extending down the left side of this image): The rounded gray hills at the top are part of the […]
May 26, 2020

Defrosting dunes in Jeans crater

May 26, 2020 There are sand dunes near both the north and south poles of Mars. The ones I’m showing today are on the floor of Jeans crater, which is down at 69.5°S (for reference, on Earth, some bits of […]