A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat regions covered with wind-swept sand or dunes with little or no vegetation are called ergs or sand seas. Dunes occur in different shapes and sizes, but most kinds of dunes are longer on the stoss (upflow) side, where the sand is pushed up the dune, and have a shorter slip face in the lee side. The valley or trough between dunes is called a dune slack.
A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shells or coralline algae. Sediments settle in different densities and structures, depending on the local wave action and weather, creating different textures, colors and gradients or layers of material.
Driftwood is wood that has been washed onto a shore or beach of a sea, lake, or river by the action of winds, tides or waves.
Singing sand, also called whistling sand, barking sand or singing dune, is sand that produces sound. The sound emission may be caused by wind passing over dunes or by walking on the sand.
Arboriculture is the cultivation, management, and study of individual trees, shrubs, vines, and other perennial woody plants. The science of arboriculture studies how these plants grow and respond to cultural practices and to their environment. The practice of arboriculture includes cultural techniques such as selection, planting, training, fertilization, pest and pathogen control, pruning, shaping, and removal.
Stovepipe Wells is a way-station in the northern part of Death Valley, in unincorporated Inyo County, California.
Indiana Dunes National Park is a United States national park located in northwestern Indiana managed by the National Park Service. It was authorized by Congress in 1966 as the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and was redesignated as the nation's 61st national park on February 15, 2019. The park runs for about 20 miles (32 km) along the southern shore of Lake Michigan and covers 15,349 acres (6,212 ha). Along the lakefront, the eastern area is roughly the lake shore south to U.S. 12 or U.S. 20 between Michigan City, Indiana, on the east and the Cleveland-Cliffs steel plant on the west. To the west of the steel plant lies West Beach and a small extension south of the steel mill continues west along Salt Creek to Indiana 249. The western area is roughly the shoreline south to U.S. 12 between the Burns Ditch west to Broadway in downtown Gary, Indiana. The area conservation scheme is enhanced by the older Indiana Dunes State Park. In addition, there are several outlying areas, including Pinhook Bog, in LaPorte County to the east; the Heron Rookery in Porter County, the center of the park; and the Calumet Prairie State Nature Preserve and the Hobart Prairie Grove, both in Lake County, the western end of the park.
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is an American national park that conserves an area of large sand dunes up to 750 feet (230 m) tall on the eastern edge of the San Luis Valley, and an adjacent national preserve in the Sangre de Cristo Range, in south-central Colorado, United States. The park was originally designated Great Sand Dunes National Monument on March 17, 1932, by President Herbert Hoover. The original boundaries protected an area of 35,528 acres. A boundary change and redesignation as a national park and preserve was authorized on November 22, 2000, and then established on September 24, 2004. The park encompasses 107,342 acres while the preserve protects an additional 41,686 acres for a total of 149,028 acres. The recreational visitor total was 527,546 in 2019.
The Curonian (Courish) Spit is a 98-kilometre (61 mi) long, thin, curved sand-dune spit that separates the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea. Its southern portion lies within Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, and its northern within southwestern Klaipėda County, Lithuania. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site shared by Lithuania and Russia.
Places of interest in the Death Valley area are mostly located within Death Valley National Park in eastern California.
Indiana Dunes State Park is an Indiana State Park located in Porter County, Indiana, United States, 47 miles (75.6 km) east of Chicago. The park is bounded by Lake Michigan to the northwest and is surrounded by as well as within the authorized boundaries of Indiana Dunes National Park, a unit of the National Park Service; the NPS owns the water from the ordinary high water mark to 300 feet (91 m) offshore. The 1,530-acre (619.2 ha) Dunes Nature Preserve makes up the bulk of eastern part of the park, and includes most of the park's hiking trails and dune landscape. This was one of the first places Richard Lieber considered when establishing the Indiana State Park system. Like all Indiana state parks, there is a fee for entrance. Indiana Dunes State Park was established in 1925 and designated a National Natural Landmark in 1974.
Lake Chicago was a prehistoric proglacial lake that is the ancestor of what is now known as Lake Michigan, one of North America's five Great Lakes. Formed about 13,000 years ago and fed by retreating glaciers, it drained south through the Chicago Outlet River.
The Skeleton in Armor is the name given to a skeleton associated with metal, bark and cloth artifacts which was unearthed in Fall River, Massachusetts in 1832. The skeleton was subsequently destroyed in a fire in 1843. It is also the name of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Sandy Island Beach State Park is a New York State park on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. Its highlight is a 1,500-foot (460 m) natural sandy beach. The park is near the southern end of a notable 17-mile (27 km) length of sandy shoreline, coastal dunes, and wetlands ; a 1959 study noted that "The eastern end of Lake Ontario contains not only the finest beaches on the entire lake but also the finest wildlife habitat."
Mount Baldy is a sand dune located in Indiana Dunes National Park. It is on the southern shore of Lake Michigan and is 126 feet tall. It is a wandering dune that moves or shifts every year, and is called a "living dune."
Pinhook Bog is a unique bog in Indiana that has been designated a National Natural Landmark. It is part of Indiana Dunes National Park, an area that many citizens, scientists, and politicians fought hard to preserve. Its sister bog, Volo Bog, is located nearby. The bog contains a large variety of plants, including insect eating plants, tamarack trees, stands of blueberry bushes, and floating mats of sphagnum moss. Pinhook Bog is about 580 acres (2.3 km2), a quarter of which is a floating mat of sphagnum peat moss. A "moat" separates the bog from the uplands.
Cowles Bog is a 4,000-year-old wetland complex in Indiana Dunes National Park, near Chesterton, Indiana. It is named for Henry Chandler Cowles who did his pioneering work in ecology and ecological succession here. His work brought international attention to the area which led to efforts to preserve the Indiana Dunes. It was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1965. It contains bog, fen, marsh, wet meadow, swamp, and pond habitats.
Eucalyptus botryoides, commonly known as the bangalay, bastard jarrah, woollybutt or southern mahogany, is a small to tall tree native to southeastern Australia. Reaching up to 40 metres high, it has rough bark on its trunk and branches. It is found on sandstone- or shale-based soils in open woodland, or on more sandy soils behind sand dunes. The white flowers appear in summer and autumn. It reproduces by resprouting from its woody lignotuber or epicormic buds after bushfire. E. botryoides hybridises with the Sydney blue gum in the Sydney region. The hard, durable wood has been used for panelling and flooring.
