aeolian
November 12, 2015
A Piece of Mars: This 480×270 m (1575×886 ft) area shows a seemingly endless field of ripples. They’re big, about 50 m (164 ft) from crest to crest, and probably about 5 m (16 ft) high. Is there a knit […]
October 12, 2015
A Piece of Mars: This scene is 0.96×0.54 km (0.60×0.34 mi) across. There’s an old river valley running across it. The walls of the valley have been eroded and there’s a washboard pattern with a wavelength of ~6m (20 ft). […]
October 5, 2015
A Piece of Mars: The dark dunes in this 0.96×0.54 km (0.60×0.34 mi) scene are slowly migrating towards the lower left. Look closer and you’ll see brighter ripples between the dunes – the biggest ones are ~8m (26 ft) apart. […]
August 26, 2015
A piece of Mars: These dunes look strangely triangular, a little bit like a flock of stealth bombers. Why? They’re two-faced barchans. Each flat face is an avalanche slope that faces downwind, formed by one of two distinct wind patterns […]
July 31, 2015
A piece of Mars: There’s an egg-shaped plateau here (the whole scene is 480×270 m or 525×295 yd across, the “egg” is ~100 m long). It’s partly covered by dunes that have extended across it. Or were the dunes there […]
July 27, 2015
A piece of Mars: So much wind. There are dark swirly tracks of dust devils that have passed by, ripples covering dunes, wind scours around rocks, and of course dunes. Dune crests have a different color than other regions: are […]
July 6, 2015
A piece of Mars: In this image (0.96×0.54 km or 0.6×0.33 mi), it’s late winter and the sun is barely above the horizon here near the north pole. The dunes are covered in winter frost, most of which is CO2 […]
May 25, 2015
A piece of Mars: this 0.96×0.54 km (0.6×0.33 mi) scene shows a large, rippled dune that is slowly marching towards the upper right. The smooth striped band running from upper left to lower right is the slip face, where sand […]
April 19, 2015
A piece of Mars: This 300×300 m (984×984 ft) scene shows bright windblown dunes or ripples arrayed in a lacy pattern (the biggest ones are about 5 m, or 16 ft, across). This is near the landing site of Ares […]
March 18, 2015
A Piece of Mars: With all due apologies to followers of the show Coupling, I have to call these things “melty dunes”. This link shows what a crisp dune should look like. The dunes in this 600×450 m (0.37×0.28 mi) […]
February 2, 2015
A piece of Mars: What happens to dunes as they move over rough terrain? This is what a barchan looks like on a relatively flat surface. If the hills are smaller than the dune, then it does its best to […]
January 26, 2015
A piece of Mars: This scene (600×450 m or 1969×1476 ft) is covered in small craters, formed by the splash of a larger crater nearby. They cover everything, even the bright ripples visible on the right. So the ripples were […]