yardangs
October 15, 2014
A piece of Mars: Topography in color is draped over an image of a windblown cliff. The entire shape of the landscape here was formed by wind, from the large 400 m (1312 ft) tall zigzag cliff, to the small […]
September 15, 2014
A piece of Mars: Wind flow on Mars can be quite dramatic. Here, a single wind-sculpted hill stands 1.5 km (0.93 mi) wide and 600 m (1970 ft) high (color shows elevation). That sounds big, but vastly larger is the […]
August 25, 2014
A piece of Mars: This scene (3.9×2.5 km or 2.4×1.6 mi) shows a surface carved by two different winds: one blowing from the right and one blowing from the bottom right. They’ve formed overlapping sets of streamlined rocks called yardangs. […]
June 2, 2014
A piece of Mars: Over time, windblown sand can wear down a surface. This isn’t so common on Earth, where water, ice, and life are more likely to change the landscape, but it’s typical of many places on Mars. Here, […]
May 26, 2014
A piece of Mars: This is a bit of the flank of Arsia Mons, one of Mars’ great volcanoes. The big changes in topography are ancient relics of erosion by lava and great tectonic pulling. What I like is that […]
May 12, 2014
A piece of Mars: It’s similar to my last post, but I love these wind tails. This is a tiny bit of the eastern slope of the gigantic volcano, Olympus Mons. The dusty surface has been covered by boulders (the […]
April 21, 2014
A piece of Mars: Now here’s something that, as far as I know, can safely be labeled as “uniquely martian”. These dunes (or maybe they’re ripples) are ~25 m wide, and have formed from winds blowing from the upper left. […]
January 13, 2014
A piece of Mars: Where the wind blows strong and there’s a lot of sand, the surface gets scoured. Some bits of the ground, called yardangs, are more resistant and stick around: they take on shapes elongated in the direction […]
November 25, 2013
A Piece of Mars: These rocks look like hooded figures from some dark fantasy story. European standing stones should be jealous, they don’t typically get a shroud of dark sand to add to their mystery and etch them into beguiling […]