Our two-person crew loaded the automotive with a GPS, a drone, notebooks, pattern baggage, a trowel and a flat spatula lovingly referred to as a scoopula. Then we drove half-hour in our rented truck from Yuma, Arizona, to the Algodones Dunes, a sandy subject bordering California, Arizona and Mexico. The day was sunny, with a powerful breeze. Turning off the freeway, we fastidiously headed onto a gravelly path that acted as our highway.
After making first rate – if bumpy – progress, we pulled off onto the sand flats and drove slowly towards the dunes, nervous we would get caught within the sand. Having arrived on the outskirts of the Algodones, we stopped and loaded our backpacks, then set off into the desert on foot.
The coarse- and fine-grained sand on the Algodones Dunes.
Lauren Berger
It was November 2022. As a graduate pupil at Texas A&M College, I used to be starting a part of my Ph.D. analysis with my adviser, geology professor Ryan Ewing. We had been searching for coarse-grained sand ripples, that are patterned piles of sand formed by wind. Sand ripples and sand dunes are kinds of aeolian bedforms, that are wind-created geologic options.
Aeolian bedforms are widespread on Earth and throughout the photo voltaic system, together with on Mars, Venus, Pluto, the Saturn moon Titan, the Neptune moon Triton, and Comet 67P. These geological options, among the many first landforms noticed by distant photographs of planetary surfaces, are strong indicators of a world’s wind patterns.
Flying a drone at Algodones. Observe the GPS on the tripod, and a GPS goal on the bottom, which was additionally a touchdown pad for the drone.
Ryan Ewing
Measuring sand patterns in individual
The shapes and patterns of aeolian bedforms can reveal the environmental situations that created them.
Two sizes of the identical bedform, comparable to small dunes on prime of massive dunes, are referred to as compound bedforms. I research compound bedforms at two scales – the meter- and centimeter-sized coarse-grained ripples on the dunes right here on Earth, and the kilometer- and meter-sized dunes on Mars.
On the Algodones, I measured the peak of every giant coarse-grained sand ripple and the space between neighboring ripples. Then we flew our drone low and regular, above the ripples, to create high-resolution photographs. The drone information permits us to do additional measurements on the ripples later, again at my desk.
On that day, I discovered a necessary rule of fieldwork within the desert: Don’t overlook a shovel. In any other case, in case your car will get caught, as ours did, you’ll should dig it out by hand. Fortunately for us, a dune buggy driver passing by helped us out and we had been in a position to get again to Yuma in meal time.
Excessive-resolution drone photographs of the sand ripples at Algodones.
Lauren Berger
My introduction to Mars
I first turned all for aeolian bedforms throughout my sophomore yr of school, after I interned on the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. My job was to view floor photographs of Mars after which map the sand ripples within the areas the place Perseverance, the Mars rover, would possibly land. I assessed the areas the place ripples might be hazards – locations the place the rover may get caught within the sand, the way in which our rental truck did within the Algodones.
I mapped these sand ripples on Mars for 2 years. However whereas I mapped, I turned fascinated with the patterns the ripples made.
A possible compound dune on Mars.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Now, as a graduate pupil and aspiring planetary geologist, my time is break up between work within the subject and at my pc, the place I’ve stitched collectively the drone’s pictures of the Algodones to create a big picture of all the research space. I then search for compound dunes on the Martian floor in photographs taken by the Mars reconnaissance orbiter’s context digital camera.
Scientists already learn about Earth’s climate patterns, sand grain dimension and wind information. By measuring totally different elements of bedforms on each planets – comparable to their peak, form and spacing – I can evaluate the similarities and variations of the bedforms to seek out clues to the wind patterns, grains and environment on Mars. Slowly however absolutely, as I take heed to Studio Ghibli soundtracks, I’m creating the primary database of compound dunes on Mars.
Two dune fields on Mars, each inside an affect crater.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Creating this database is crucial to the proposed human mission to Mars. Mud storms are frequent, and a few can encircle all the planet. Understanding aeolian bedforms will assist scientists know the place to place bases so that they don’t get buried by transferring sand.
It’s great to spend a day ping-ponging throughout a planet that’s 140 million miles from us, seeing beautiful terrain whereas I attempt to reply questions concerning the compound dunes on Mars. How widespread are they? The place do they kind? How do they evaluate to these on Earth? I hope to reply these questions as I work towards incomes my Ph.D in geology.
