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Dunes can likely be found in any environment where there is a substantial atmosphere, winds, and dust to be blown. Dunes are common on Mars and in the equatorial regions of Titan. Titan's dunes include large expanses with modal lengths of about 20–30 km. The regions are not topographically confined, resembling sand seas.
Coastal sand dunes are found just inland from a beach, and are formed as the wind blows dry sand inland beyond the beach. It follows that this can only happen when there is an area of reasonably flat land inland from the beach. In time, this rather inhospitable surface will be colonised by pioneer species.
Barchans or crescent dunes are produced by wind acting on desert sand; the two horns of the crescent and the slip face point downwind. Sand blows over the upwind face, which stands at about 15 degrees from the horizontal, and falls onto the slip face, where it accumulates up to the angle of repose of the sand, which is about 35 degrees.
Dunes: A dune is a large pile of wind-blown material, typically sand or snow. As the pile accumulates, its larger surface area increases the rate of deposition in a positive feedback loop until the dune collapses under its own weight. This process causes dunes to move in the direction of the wind over time. [6] [7] Death Valley Mesquite Flats ...
Barchan dunes are produced by strong winds blowing across a level surface and are crescent-shaped with the concave side away from the wind. When there are two directions from which winds regularly blow, a series of long, linear dunes known as seif dunes may form. These also occur parallel to a strong wind that blows in one general direction.
Saturn's largest moon Titan is known to have extensive fields of dunes. However, the origin of the material forming the dunes is unknown - it could be small fragments of water ice eroded by flowing methane or particulate organic matter that formed in Titan's atmosphere and rained down on the surface.
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Erg Chebbi, Morocco Major dune seas of the Sahara in yellow, Great Sand Sea.Red dashed line shows approximate limit of the Sahara. Sand seas and dune fields generally occur in regions downwind of copious sources of dry, loose sand, such as dry riverbeds and deltas, floodplains, glacial outwash plains, dry lakes, and beaches.