Researchers bulldoze desert to learn how sand dunes form

(Phys.org) —A team made up of members from research facilities in France and China has found that theoretical models built to describe sand dune formation align very closely with how they actually form in nature. In their ...

Marks on Martian dunes may be tracks of dry-ice sleds

(Phys.org) —NASA research indicates hunks of frozen carbon dioxide—dry ice—may glide down some Martian sand dunes on cushions of gas similar to miniature hovercraft, plowing furrows as they go.

Winds of change strike Mars, too

Mysterious dark sand dunes around Mars' northern polar cap are shifting with the seasons, as carbon dioxide gas changes form and sparks landscape-altering avalanches, said a study published Thursday.

Ice sheet melt identified as trigger of Big Freeze

The main cause of a rapid global cooling period, known as the Big Freeze or Younger Dryas - which occurred nearly 13,000 years ago - has been identified thanks to the help of an academic at the University of Sheffield.

Mice living in sandy hills quickly evolved lighter coloration

In a vivid illustration of natural selection at work, scientists at Harvard University have found that deer mice living in Nebraska's Sand Hills quickly evolved lighter coloration after glaciers deposited sand dunes atop ...

Cassini Maps Global Pattern of Titan's Dunes

(PhysOrg.com) -- Titan's vast dune fields, which may act like weather vanes to determine general wind direction on Saturn's biggest moon, have been mapped by scientists who compiled four years of radar data collected by the ...

Martian rock arrangement not alien handiwork

At first, figuring out how pebble-sized rocks organize themselves in evenly-spaced patterns in sand seemed simple and even intuitive. But once Andrew Leier, an assistant geoscience professor at the U of C, started observing, ...

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