Gary Kocurek

A methodology for reconstructing wind direction, speed, and event duration from aeolian dune cross‐strata was developed from analysis of crescentic dunes at White Sands, New Mexico, during wind events. Dune lee faces were surveyed, lee‐face deposits mapped, deposition rates measured, grain size sampled by stratification type, and winds characterized from meteorological and field data. The spatial distribution of lee‐face stratification styles is a function of the incidence angle formed between the wind and the brinkline, with secondary controls by wind speed and dune sinuosity and height. Sets of wind‐ripple strata form at incidence angles of 25°–40°, grainfall/grainflow foresets over wind‐ripple bottomsets at 40°–70°, and grainflow/grainfall foresets at 70°–90°. Erosional reactivation surfaces form at incidence angles up to 15°; bypass surfaces up to 25°. The total sediment load is fractionated within lee‐face stratification types. Wind speed can be reconstructed from relationships between grain size, transport mode, shear velocity and grain‐settling velocity. Where the full range of grain transport modes occurs and grain size is limited by shear stress, the shear velocity and grain‐size range in each transport mode can be estimated by assuming the coarse fraction in grainflow strata traveled in creep, and the coarse fraction in grainfall traveled in saltation. The minimum duration of a wind event can be estimated using measures of shear velocity, dune height and dune forward migration. Method limitations arise with source‐area control on grain size, extremes in wind events, and severe truncation of sets of cross‐strata.

One explanation for bedform patterns is self‐organization in which the pattern emerges because of interactions among the bedforms themselves. Models, remote images, field studies and lab experiments have identified bedform interactions that involve whole bedforms, only bedform defects, or that are remote interactions between bedforms. It is proposed that bedform interactions form a spectrum from constructive to regenerative in pattern development. Constructive interactions, including merging, lateral linking, cannibalization, and remote transfer of sediment, push the system toward fewer, larger, more widely spaced bedforms. Regenerative interactions, including bedform splitting, defect creation and calving, push the system back toward a more initial state. Other interactions, including off‐center collision, defect migration, and bedform and defect repulsion, cause pattern change, but may not be strongly constructive or regenerative. Although bedform interactions are ubiquitous to any field of bedforms, their dynamics, flow‐field modification, and impact upon measurable pattern parameters are yet poorly understood. Most bedform interactions span bedform types and fluids, supporting the hypothesis that pattern emerges from dynamics at the bedform level in a hierarchy that includes lower levels of bedform‐flow and grain–fluid interactions. Bedform interactions alone, however, cannot account for the rich diversity of bedform patterns in nature. It is proposed that field diversity arises because of boundary conditions, which are the environmental variables within which a field evolves. Conceptually, boundary conditions modify the shape of the attractor toward which a field evolves, possibly by altering the type and frequency of bedform interactions. Boundary conditions are broadly similar within system types, but are unique for each bedform field so that no two are ever exactly alike. Although aeolian and fluvial systems share some types of boundary conditions, flow depth is a unique boundary condition in shallow fluvial systems. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The pattern of dunes within the Gran Desierto of Sonora, Mexico, is both spatially diverse and complex. Identification of the pattern components from remote‐sensing images, combined with statistical analysis of their measured parameters demonstrate that the composite pattern consists of separate populations of simple dune patterns. Age‐bracketing by optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) indicates that the simple patterns represent relatively short‐lived aeolian constructional events since ∼25 ka. The simple dune patterns consist of: (i) late Pleistocene relict linear dunes; (ii) degraded crescentic dunes formed at ∼12 ka; (iii) early Holocene western crescentic dunes; (iv) eastern crescentic dunes emplaced at ∼7 ka; and (v) star dunes formed during the last 3 ka. Recognition of the simple patterns and their ages allows for the geomorphic backstripping of the composite pattern. Palaeowind reconstructions, based upon the rule of gross bedform‐normal transport, are largely in agreement with regional proxy data. The sediment state over time for the Gran Desierto is one in which the sediment supply for aeolian constructional events is derived from previously stored sediment (Ancestral Colorado River sediment), and contemporaneous influx from the lower Colorado River valley and coastal influx from the Bahia del Adair inlet. Aeolian constructional events are triggered by climatic shifts to greater aridity, changes in the wind regime, and the development of a sediment supply. The rate of geomorphic change within the Gran Desierto is significantly greater than the rate of subsidence and burial of the accumulation surface upon which it rests.

Surveyed outcrops of the Middle Jurassic Entrada Sandstone at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, show the unusual occurrence of preserved aeolian dune palaeotopography buried beneath subaqueous strata. The preserved dune remnants have relief up to 35 m, trend NNW, and show internal scalloped cross‐strata dipping to the WSW, with small sets occurring as both topsets and bottomsets. Outcrop data are best satisfied in computer models by 50 m high, sinuous bedforms that migrated to the WSW, while the sinuosity migrated alongcrest to the NNW. Superimposed small dunes occurred upon the stoss slope, and at the basal lee of the main bedform where they migrated alongslope to the NNW. Remnant dune palaeotopography is buried by onlapping, subaqueous, largely structureless sandstones believed to be derived by mass wasting of the upper portions of the dunes and deposited as sediment‐gravity flows that infilled between the dunes. Preservation of dune palaeotopography beneath mass‐flow deposits, with no evidence for gradually rising water, argues that flooding of the Entrada dune field was geologically instantaneous. The thickness and lithology of the overlying Todilto Formation conform to slight remnant palaeotopography on the Entrada surface. The Todilto is a laminated limestone and thinnest over remnant dune crestal areas, but thickens and increases in gypsum content downslope until it abruptly yields to a gypsum mound positioned over a remnant interdune hollow. The Todilto laminations are interpreted as seasonal varves deposited below wave base in a density‐stratified water body. The flooding event that gave rise to the controversial Todilto water body occurred during Entrada time, with Todilto deposition occurring within an already substantial water body.

The sediment state of aeolian dune fields and sand seas at a basinal scale is defined by the separate components of sediment supply, sediment availability and the transport capacity of the wind. The sediment supply for aeolian systems is the sediment that contemporaneously or at some later point serves as the source material for the aeolian system. Numerous factors impact the susceptibility of grains on a surface to transport, but these are cumulatively manifested by the actual transport rate, which serves as a proxy for sediment availability. Transport capacity is the potential sediment transport rate of the wind. Because the three aspects of sediment state can be given as a volumetric rate, they are directly comparable. Plotted simultaneously against time, the generated curves define nine possible classes of sediment state. Sediment supply that is stored occurs because it is transport or availability limited, or generated at a rate greater than the potential or actual transport rates respectively. Contemporaneous or lagged influx to an aeolian system may be limited by sediment availability, but cannot exceed the transport capacity of the wind. For the Kelso dune field in the Mojave Desert of California, a variety of stratigraphic and geomorphic evidence is used to approximate the sediment state of the system. The sediment supply was generated during the latest Pleistocene and earliest Holocene during humid periods of enhanced discharge by the Mojave River to form the Lake Mojave fan delta or terminal fan, and has been calculated over time from the sedimentation rate and the frequency of floods. Estimation of transport capacity over time was based upon modern wind data, with an allowance for greater winds during the Pleistocene based upon climatic models. Sediment availability was approximated by calculation of a modern dune mobility index, with variation over time based upon climatic inferences. While quantifying the Kelso or any natural system is subject to numerous uncertainties, the sediment state approach reflects the temporal and spatial disjointed nature of accumulations at Kelso, as well as illuminating questions for future research.