These pictures are from a 1-day field trip to the White Sands dunes near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The trip was associated with the Planetary Dunes Workshop, held in Alamogordo this year.
Here are Ryan Ewing and Gary Kocurek (from University of Texas - Austin), who study White Sands and led the field trip.
Digging a trench in the sandy interdune.
Trench close-up.
The crew gathered 'round.
Ralph Lorenz.
Ralph setting up his Kite-cam.
Kite-cam in flight.
Reeling in the Kite-cam.
Here I got the camera part and Ralph just as it was reeling in the last meter.
Some of the underlying layering in the dunes is starting to poke out from their back side here.
Field trippers get intimate with saltation.
Another trench.
This time with attendant planed-off view to complement.
The park service nicely cut a fresh exposure of a dune cut in half for us.
This being a short while after the bulldozer came through, the sand was still reacting.
The cross-section of a "live" dune was cool, but these fascinating spires were cool, too!
An alcove and channel of a dry flow in action. movie
Selenite crystal from the margins of Lake Lucero.
Lots more selenite crystals.
On the dry lakebed.
Outcrop of layering at the edge of Lake Lucero.
After a group photo on top of a parabolic dune; Jani takes a photo of the PSI people in background.
Our bus.
It was *VERY* windy this day. Up here on the platform it was worse. Winds were at least 40 MPH. My hat stays on pretty well, but I didn't trust it in these extreme winds.
