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How Dunes Move Training Center

Ari Raider's Training Materials · Canyon Chaos · Training Center 4 of 6

How Dunes Move

The path was there this morning. Now a dune has walked across it. Dunes really do move — grain by grain, in a set order — and working with the wind beats digging all day.

What you're training for

At the Drifting Dunes, sand is hissing over the crest in a steady stream. Walking the sand off the path means knowing the five steps of a moving dune, in order. Train here first; prove it in the simulation.

The science

  • Wind moves sand grain by grain — grains bounce along the ground in hops, a motion scientists call saltation.
  • Sand bounces up the gentle windward side and piles at the crest.
  • When the crest over-steepens, sand slides down the steep slip face on the sheltered side.
  • Bounce up, pile, slide down, repeat — and the whole dune creeps forward, sometimes tens of feet a year, burying roads and fences as it goes.

Teach it today — a tray and a straw

The desk-top desert. A thin layer of sand (or sugar) in a tray, and a straw per student. Blow gently and low — watch grains bounce rather than fly, pile into a ridge, and avalanche down the far side. Mark the dune's position with tape and blow again: it moved. That's the whole mechanism, observed firsthand.

Trained and ready? Prove it at Stop 4 — the Drifting Dunes. Free, no logins, progress saved on the device.

Enter the Realm at Stop 4

Resources in this training center

Worksheets, reading passages, flashcards and printables for this lesson are being added — new resources land here first. Get one email a month when they do, or browse the whole free library.

The hands-on half: the Canyon Chaos Adventure Kit puts six real specimens, six Digs, six Gemlings and the Realm map in your students' hands — $19.99, or $15 a student for classrooms.

More Canyon Chaos training

Weathering, Erosion & Deposition · Rock Layers · Soil Layers · How Dunes Move · Physical vs Chemical · Erosion Control · Enter the Adventure →

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