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Dunes
Anything and everything anytime
National Geographic
DASHT-E LUT ▪ IRAN
Aloft in a wilderness of blowing sand, Alain Arnoux pilots his motorized paraglider in tricky winds along a massive dune in Iran’s vast Lut Desert. Frenchman Arnoux, a champion flier, has assisted photographer George Steinmetz on more than a dozen aerial expeditions to document the shape-shifting beauty of the world’s arid zones.
RUB AL KHALI ▪ SAUDI ARABIA
Young dunes flow like calligraphy in the Rub al Khali, Arabic for Empty Quarter. Towering above them, a star dune, because of its size, will likely hold its spot for decades.
PACIFIC COAST ▪ PERU
Strong southerly winds fashion a chain of dunes on a remote beach in central Peru. Ocean waves supply huge amounts of the dune-building sand.
BADAIN JARAN ▪ CHINA
Improbable jewel-bright lakes nestle among thousand-foot-high star dunes in a desert where Mongolian goat and sheep herders live. They depend on the springs that feed these salt lakes.
PACIFIC COAST ▪ PERU
Barchan “Barchan” is Turkic for a crescent-shaped dune—found on the edge of sand seas and formed when the wind blows steadily from one direction.
SAHARA ▪ CHAD
Seif Elongated, sharp-crested seifs, named after the Arabic word for sword, take shape in regions with moderate sand and shifting winds.
WADI HAZAR ▪ YEMEN
Giant dunes appear to be crumbling into pieces, a puzzling phenomenon in the region’s Empty Quarter. A change in wind patterns may explain the desert redesign.
SAHARA ▪ ALGERIA
Villagers in an oasis near Timimoun erect fences made of palm fronds to protect their gardens from the shifting sand, which settles near the fences as the wind blows.
NAMIB DESERT ▪ NAMIBIA
Sand repossesses buildings in Kolmanskop, a diamond-mining town abandoned in the 1950s. The ruins sit near an active sand stream that may someday bury them.
SAHARA ▪ MAURITANIA
Traveling an old caravan route, tourists on camels weave through a maze of dunes. Sandstorms regularly push dunes around, guaranteeing an ever changing view.
2012-10-30 11:20:10
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