(PhysOrg.com) -- In more than 30 locations around the world, the phenomenon of singing sand dunes has intrigued explorers, tourists, and scientists. When an avalanche occurs or even when the sand is pushed by hand, it emits ...
Although sand dunes often conjure images of great deserts, they also occur along coastlines worldwide and can be an important buffer for communities threatened by sea level rise, storms and coastal erosion.
Sand dunes, like many ecosystems, have more than one comfort zone. Variations in moisture, especially, can shift them from active, blowing waves of dry sand to rolling mounds with soils held down by grass and low shrubs.
Earth Sciences
Feb 26, 2020
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Even though they are inanimate objects, sand dunes can 'communicate' with each other. A team from the University of Cambridge has found that as they move, sand dunes interact with and repel their downstream neighbours.
General Physics
Feb 4, 2020
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The flow of granular materials, such as sand and catalytic particles used in chemical reactors, explains a wide range of natural phenomena, from mudslides to volcanos, and enables a broad array of industrial processes, from ...
General Physics
Apr 22, 2019
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The amazing ability of sidewinder snakes to quickly climb sandy slopes was once something biologists only vaguely understood and roboticists only dreamed of replicating. By studying the snakes in a unique bed of inclined ...
Robotics
Oct 9, 2014
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(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 ...
(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.
Space Exploration
Jun 11, 2013
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Last year, images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured sand dunes and ripples moving across the surface of Mars—observations that challenged previously held beliefs that there was not a lot of movement on ...
Space Exploration
May 9, 2012
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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.
Space Exploration
Feb 3, 2011
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