A Comparative Analysis of Sediment Transport and Deposition Trends of the Namib Sand Sea and Belet on Titan
Résumé
Introduction: Saturn's moon Titan has striking geomorphological similarities to Earth, including a pervasive set of eolian landforms. On both bodies, large linear dunes form into sand seas, which are sedimentary bodies transported and deposited by eolian processes [1]. On Titan, the sand seas are concentrated in the equatorial region and are very large; for example, the Belet Sand Sea is approximately 3.3 ± 0.6 million km 2 and has a sand volume of 610,000-1,270,000 km 3 [2,3,4]. Most present day terrestrial sand seas are significantly smaller than those on Titan. The largest sand sea on Earth, the Rub' al Khali, covers an area of ~560,000 km 2 [5]. The latitudes of sand seas on Earth also vary much more than sand seas on Titan, which is likely a reflection of climatic conditions related to Hadley circulation [6]. However, despite different atmospheric and compositional differences, the similarity in the shape and size of linear dunes of the Namib, Arabian, and Australian deserts and the Belet Sand Sea of Titan suggests that comparisons with them will yield a better understanding of Titan's dunes [6,7,8]. The morphology of linear dunes indicates there is the necessary wind strength and direction (with vector winds approx
Domaines
Planète et Univers [physics]Origine | Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s) |
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