Use of profile shape for remotely differentiating between sand ripples, megaripples, and sand dunes on Earth and Mars

Physics

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[1824] Hydrology / Geomorphology: General, [5400] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets, [5470] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Surface Materials And Properties

Scientific paper

Processes of emplacement vary considerably between typical sand ripples (associated with saltation of medium to fine sand), megaripples (large ripples with a surface coating of coarse grains moved by impact creep, over a predominantly sand interior), and certain types of sand dunes (specifically, transverse dunes and reversing dunes, both of which can include avalanche deposits associated with slip face development). The features all have roughly similar-appearing planforms even though they represent drastically different emplacement mechanisms. Cross-sectional profiles were measured for the three types of feature using multiple techniques of surveying in order to obtain comparable precisions for features whose horizontal scale ranges over more than three orders of magnitude. When the measured profiles are scaled by the width of the feature, defined here to be the distance between the basal break in slope on both sides of the crest, the scaled profiles can be separated according to their process. When detailed topographic information can be obtained from images of various aeolian features on Mars, such as photoclinometric derivation of shape from shading, the width-scaled terrestrial data provide a method for remotely evaluating the probable mechanism of origin for the Martian features. Application of this technique to planetary settings is limited primarily by the precision of topography that can be obtained remotely for planetary surfaces, but at least for Mars, the diverse data sets available from multiple spacecraft platforms are providing data that can be compared favorably to the measured terrestrial data sets. This work was supported by a grant from the Mars Data Analysis program of NASA (NNX08AK90G) and funds from the Smithsonian Endowments.

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