1. Chapter 12: Effects of Winds, Waves, and Currents
Wind as an Agent of Change

2. Rock Materials Carried by Winds
Winds are agents of erosion.
Winds pick up and move sediments
Winds cause weathering by driving sediment against rocks and other materials.
Deserts (dry, loose sediments) have the most wind erosion.
Dust storms occur when strong, steady winds lift great amounts of silt and clay from the topsoil.
Winds of at least 18 km/h are needed to move sand grains, and move in hops and bounces.

3. Dust Storm, Texas

4. Abrasion by Windblown Sediments
Windblown silt and clay particles are too small and too soft to wear away most rocks.
Sand grains are larger and tend to be made of more abrasive materials, they grind and scour anything they hit.
Quartz sand grains can wear away many materials.
Sand blasts and grinds boulders and rocks into shapes called ventifacts.
The side of the ventifact that faces the wind wears into a smooth flat surface, or facet

5. Deflation: An Erosional Effect
Deflation is the removal of loose rock particles by the wind
In deserts when the sands and clays are blown away, it leaves pebbles and boulders called desert pavement.

6. In semiarid regions, deflation can form hollows called blowouts.

7. Loess Wind can deposit sediment as well as remove it.
Large areas in China, northern Europe, and the north central United States are covered by thick deposits of material called loess.
1m-100m in thickness
Unlayered, yellowish particles the size of silt.
Particles are angular in shape
The particles in the US and Europe were likely from glacial outwash plains
The particles in China are likely from the deserts of Mongolia

8. Loess landscape, China

9. Sand Dunes Hills of sand deposited by winds.
Form when sand piles up against shrubs, boulders, or other obstructions.
Dunes are found wherever there are strong winds and enough loose sand.
Most are made of quartz sands, some are gypsum, calcite, and may contain some feldspar, mica, and magnetite.
If wind blows from one direction, dunes have a long, gentle slop on the windward side, and a shorter, steeper slope on the leeward side.
Dunes occur in many different shapes.

10. Four Types of Sand Dunes
Parabolic
Barchan
Longitudinal
Transverse

11. Migration of Dunes
Each time the wind blows against the windward side of a sand dune, some of the surface sand is carried over the top.
The whole dune can move in the leeward direction.