The high -resolution laser scan in the Namibia desert has allowed scientists to describe how smaller sand dunes are formed, those that are not in deserts but on beaches or hard surfaces.
An international team of researchers, with members of the universities of Southampton, Oxford, Laughborough (United Kingdom), Paris (France), Illinois and Denver (United States) has discovered that the sand that moves on tougher and more consolidated surfaces bounces higher and is transported more easily by the wind to form dunes.
Once it lands on a softer and more undulating surface, the sand accumulates forming small dunes, or “protodunas”, as the researchers define them in an article collected this Monday in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of North American Sciences.
Different formation to desert dunes
Until now, scientists had not been able to apply their knowledge about how the desert dunes were formed to these smallest scale, such as those that are usually found on the beaches.
“The theory of how the great undulating dunes of the Sahara desert part of the base of the almost unlimited quantities of soft and dry sand that the wind collects and deposits is formed. But this does not explain how the small dunes take shape on wet surfaces such as a beach or hard gravel areas,” says one of the authors, Jo Nield, a researcher at the University of Southampton.
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According to Professor Nield, “in these humid or hard surfaces, the sand is not limited to rolling through the land, but rises to a meter more or less, so a gradual transition occurs in which the grains notice the change of a surface consolidated to a undulating one.”
“Once the sand bump begins to form, that influences the wind patterns, which adds more sand and helps the dune grow up,” adds the researcher at the University of Southampton in a statement in the center.
Small dunes move and grow quickly, being able to pass from zero to six centimeters in half an hour. In addition, they can disappear as fast as they emerge.
Dunar reproduction computer model
This new theory, together with the high -resolution data captured, has been developed by researchers at the University of Paris to create a computer model that reproduces the dynamics of dunes formation.
The model has managed to recreate exactly what researchers have observed in their field studies in arid conditions such as Namibia, but also in humid conditions, such as Colorado (United States) or Norfolk (United Kingdom).
The model also allows the equipment to adjust different parameters, such as the amount of sand and the wind, to understand different dunes formation scenarios.
The authors believe that their findings will also help describe how these dunes are formed in Mars and other planets.
With EFE information.
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