Wind, like moving water, is turbulent and able to pick up sand and dust, and transport it to another location However, wind is not confined to a stream channel like water, therefore wind can spread sediment over a larger area Wind Blown Sediments

Small particles of dust can be swept high into the atmosphere by the wind and can be kept suspended in the air for long periods of time Wind Blown Dust Dust storm North of Stanton, Texas June 13, 2002

The wind can blow fine dust (silt-size) particles over great distances, even around the world Wind Blown Dust This dust storm blew off of the Sahara Desert in North Africa on February 26, 2000 and reached South America 7 days later

Dust Bowl “Now the wind grew strong and hard, it worked at the rain crust in the corn fields. Little by little the sky was darkened by the mixing dust, and the wind fell over the earth, loosened the dust and carried it away.” - John Steinbeck “The Grapes of Wrath”

Dust Bowl The “Dust Bowl” era refers to a series of dust storms in the central U.S. and Canada from 1931 to 1939, caused by decades of inappropriate farming techniques

Dust Bowl The fertile soil of the Great Plains was exposed through removal of grass during plowing

Dust Bowl Then a major, prolonged drought occurred The soil dried out, became dust, and blew away eastwards, mostly in large black clouds

Dust Bowl A month of especially vicious dust storms destroyed 5 million acres of wheat in March of 1935 An economic blow that was felt around the entire nation

Dust Bowl The “Black Sunday” dust storm of April 14, 1935 was so bad that day was turned into pitch black night and most people thought they would die as the storm raged on and on

Dust Bowl During the Dust Bowl, the economy of the Great Plains was nearly destroyed

Dust Bowl "And then the dispossessed were drawn west- from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas, families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Car-loads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand.” - John Steinbeck “The Grapes of Wrath”

Dust Bowl Economically ruined, perhaps as many as two million people fled from the Great Plains