(Phys.org) —Geologists continue to puzzle over the how and why of crescent-shaped sand dunes called barchans, found on Earth and on Mars. Barchans can form on the seafloor and on ice, as well as deserts. How do they happen? Why do they not lose their shape? Scientists seeking to understand what keeps these formations going have two recently published papers that can offer detailed explanations of how barchan dune fields can exist, and why they are arranged the way they are. The hitch is that the two papers disagree. A recently published paper by researchers from Duke University say that this is a birthing process, where large dunes give birth to smaller ones.
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