Submitted by zyphelion t3_y9re96 in askscience
Was just looking around on Google Maps when I came upon this. Tried to look up information about it but couldn't really find anything. It can be found at 46.148151520423724, 47.485107607529216.
Comments
zyphelion OP t1_it7dzq1 wrote
Thank you for answering! It's pretty fascinating that it's still sort of a mystery. The longitudinal (?) striations are quite striking and I thought my browser had glitched when I saw it at first.
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newt_girl t1_it7xgot wrote
That's what this reminded me of, too. The channeled scablands.
its___mike t1_it7xjsm wrote
This has a similar feel to it as the Carcross Desert and the Athabasca Sand Dunes (among others in Northern Canada)
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gwaydms t1_it85s3a wrote
The Channeled Scablands? Yeah, that's wild. And it happened not once, but many, many times.
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ChesswiththeDevil t1_it89efx wrote
There are similar deserts in the middle of Tundra forest in Alaska.
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Arcturus1981 t1_it8bvgz wrote
Yes, thank you for the answer. I asked about this feature on r/geology and didn’t get an answer so I’m glad it came up again.
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treemonktheverdant t1_it8egzm wrote
At least when viewed on google maps, they look a lot like the Scab Lands in Washington State. They were also created by monumental floods.
EdenianRushF212 t1_it8ejda wrote
and correct me if I'm wrong, but we were unaware it was continental flooding channels until recently we panned back and fixed our eyes on the actual scale of the flooding, which is madness.
CrustalTrudger t1_it8fi3n wrote
None of the explanations for these features as summarized in the Badyukova paper cited in the original answer focus on megafloods like those that generated the scablands as a possible origin. Ultimately, with many geomorphic features, shape alone is not diagnostic for the formation mechanism.
yeerth t1_it8fn6b wrote
Are these similar to White Sands in New Mexico?
Quirky_Word t1_it8g28k wrote
There’s also some in Colorado as well:
https://www.colorado.com/articles/national-park-profile-great-sand-dunes-national-park-preserve
treemonktheverdant t1_it8g87n wrote
I appreciate your explanation! Thank you!
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CrustalTrudger t1_it8hftp wrote
As described in the original answer, these are not wind blown features and they are definitely not gypsum dunes like those in White Sands.
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RockleyBob t1_it8vqbd wrote
This seems similar to the glacial lake that used to occupy parts of Montana during the ice age which burst and made the undulating hills of Washington state's Palouse region, no?
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CrustalTrudger t1_it8zd4w wrote
As has been stated several other times in this thread, if you look at the Badyukova paper, they describe previous interpretations, none of which are glacial outburst floods, largely because the internal stratigraphy and sedimentology is not consistent with such an origin.
graffiti81 t1_it8zl71 wrote
Anyone interested in the topic of mega floods in Washington state should check out Nick Zentner's Ice Age Floods lectures (down toward the bottom of the page). He's got some great info.
superflippy t1_it946ml wrote
Fascinating! Looking at more detailed images, it looks like a giant knife came along and sliced off the tops of some narrow hills. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Volga_Delta_Lakes,_Russia_by_Planet_Labs.jpg
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cyrkielNT t1_it9qw0g wrote
Desert in forest in Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C5%82%C4%99d%C3%B3w_Desert During WWII Germans used it for training Africa Corps. It's still used by Polish military.
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3legdog t1_it9ydlc wrote
Dude, you just filled my weekend. Thanks for the link.
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Tharen101 t1_ita8kt2 wrote
We have similar geomorphological mystery in the US in north and south Carolina. Tyey are called the Carolina bays.
sylvershade t1_itaaibo wrote
Perfect soil for blueberries! Most of NCs blueberries are grown in those bays.
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akmacmac t1_itafvde wrote
That’s so cool. You should also look at Devil’s Club. Native to the Pacific Northwest, with a disjunct population on islands of Lake Superior.
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GayMormonPirate t1_itakf8a wrote
You beat me to it. I was just going to mention the unique geologic formations in Eastern Washington state left by the ice age glaciers and floods.
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hexensabbat t1_ital5ur wrote
Thanks for this!
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HastilyMadeAlt t1_itaxz35 wrote
A natural population? If so that's so freaking cool
Kwyjibo83 t1_itb2hgw wrote
We also have this in the Netherlands
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=kootwijkerzand&t=brave&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images
ontopofyourmom t1_itb562s wrote
We have places with a similar feel (although likely for a different reason) on the Oregon Coast.
KentondeJong t1_itb5n51 wrote
Yooooo, I'm from Saskatchewan. Represent man. Thanks for promoting my tubular province.
hiroto98 t1_itb72dp wrote
There's one in Japan too, in Tottori. Sea on one side and forest on the other.
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Snookn42 t1_itbkq4c wrote
It also looks a lot like the Shark River Slough in the Everglades National Park
akmacmac t1_itcxai3 wrote
Afaik it’s naturally occurring there. There’s some interesting theories as to how that came to be. Having to do with the prehistoric copper mines on those islands
CrustalTrudger t1_it7b3w2 wrote
These are referred to as "Baers Mounds" or "Baers Knolls" after the scientist who first described them in detail in the mid 1800's. There have been a large number of hypotheses put forward to explain their formation, with aeolian (wind blown sediment) being one of the more popular as they do have a similar form to some windblown features, but subsequent work has shown that their internal structure and sediment characteristics are inconsistent with this. At present, there is still not a single explanation for their formation as far as I know, but recent publications have suggested they may be related to deposition during flow of water in a former connection between the Black and Caspian Seas, i.e., the Manych Strait (e.g., Badyukova, 2018) or as a result of deposition during rapid fall of the level of the Caspian Sea (e.g., Melnikova & Pokazeev, 2020).