Snow Gallery
Extensive snow dunes wrinkle the surface of large parts of East and West Antarctica. The dunes are up to 100 kilometers long and separated by 2 to 4 kilometers, but the height is only a few meters. Comparison of modern satellite images with pictures acquired four decades earlier shows that the dunes are nearly motionless. The dunes are unique in that they appear not to be formed by normal wind depositon, but rather by ablation due to wave patterns set up in katabatic winds. The linear pattern is due to backscatter variations associated with grain-size changes across dunes. Source: Radarsat Antarctic Mapping Project (RAMP) Gallery at NSIDC)
