Geomorphic and Geochemical Evidence for the Source of Sand in the Algodones Dunes, Colorado Desert, Southeastern California

Wind regimes and aeolian transport in the Great Basin, U.S.A.

“…Previous studies of sand dunes in western North America include the immense Gran Desierto sand sea of northwestern Mexico (Lancaster et al, 1987;Lancaster, 1990), the Algodones, Kelso, Cadiz, Danby, and Parker dunes of southeastern California and western Arizona (Muhs et al, 1995(Muhs et al, , 2003Lancaster and Tchakerian 2003), the Chaco dune field of New Mexico (Wells et al, 1990), the Killpecker dunes of southwestern Wyoming (Mayer and Mahan, 2004), and the Sand Hills of Nebraska (Ahlbrandt and Fryberger, 1980). In general, these dune fields are very large (the order of 10 3-10 4 km 2 ).…”

“…While much of the region has low precipitation and abundant potential aeolian material (much of it derived from pluvial lakes of the last glacial maximum), its diverse geographic terrains and locally extreme topographic gradients exert tremendous influence on surface winds (Stewart et al, 2002;Cairns and Corey, 2003;Shafer and Steenburgh, 2008). Previous work documenting aeolian transport and areas of dune formation in the western U.S. includes the Mojave desert (Muhs et al, 1995;Tchakerian and Lancaster, 2002;Lancaster and Tchakerian, 2003), lower Colorado River basin (Muhs et al, 1995), northern Mexico (Lancaster et al, 1987), Wyoming (Alhlbrandt et al, 1983;Gaylord and Dawson, 1987;Mayer and Mahan, 2004) and New Mexico (Wells et al, 1990). Comparatively less attention has been paid to the Great Basin region.…”

Source provenance of carbonate grains in the Wahiba Sand Sea, Oman, using a new LIBS method

“…Mineralogy, depositional environment and digenesis can impact the concentration of trace elements in carbonates. Concentrations of the trace elements can also be changed during diagenetic recrystallization (Rollinson, 1993;Finch and Allison, 2007;Sinclair et al, 2012) making variations in trace composition a good indicator or source (Muhs et al, 1995). The specific line locations for the peaks used are highlighted on Fig.…”

Eolian dynamics and sediment mixing in the Gran Desierto, Mexico, determined from thermal infrared spectroscopy and remote-sensing data

“…Several dune fi elds along and immediately around the Colorado River originate from this sediment supply, including the Algodones dunes in southeastern California (Muhs et al, 1995;Winspear and Pye, 1995;Derickson et al, 2007) and the Parker dunes of western Arizona (Zimbelman and Williams, 2002;Pease and Tchakerian, 2003;Muhs et al, 2003). The high quartz content of the Algodones dunes (83%-88% SiO 2 ) and the Parker dunes (87%-90% SiO 2 ) led to the conclusion that these dunes are relatively mature mineralogically, where the quartz-rich source partially explains their composition (Muhs et al, 1995). In contrast, other dune fi elds in the Mojave Desert of California have a much higher total feldspar composition.…”