![]() ![]() And like snow, sand avalanches, falling down the steep slopes of the dunes that face away from the winds, also moving the dunes forward. In a major dust storm, dunes may move tens of meters through such sheet flows. With slightly stronger winds, particles collide in mid-air, causing sheet flows. When these skipping particles land, they may knock into other particles and cause them to skip as well. One way that dunes can move is through saltation, where sand particles skip along the ground like a rock thrown across a pond might skip across the water’s surface. ![]() Sand dunes move through a few different means, all of them helped along by wind. Although they look appealing in a satellite image, these dunes threaten to overtake the city. ![]() Hot on the city’s heels are sand dunes, appearing as salmon-tinged beige ripples. ![]() In this image, the city of Nouakchott appears in charcoal gray, and its features cover the landscape in a typical grid-like urban pattern. The Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) instrument on NASA’s Landsat satellite captured this photo-like image of Nouakchott on January 9, 2001. Even for the coastal capital, Nouakchott, Saharan sands pose daily challenges for the city’s inhabitants. Mauritania lies along the west coast of northern Africa, and holds part of the Sahara Desert. This city may be slowly obliterated by nature-not by creeping green vines run amok, but by creeping dunes of sand. Such is the case in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania. While many worry about urban areas slowly engulfing nearby nature, once in a while the tables are turned. ![]()
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