Athabasca Sand Dunes
Stretching for about 100 kilometers along the southern border of Lake Athabasca, inwards the Canadian tell of Saskatchewan, are some of the most northerly active sand dunes on Earth. Unlike most dunes, which are associated amongst dry out too arid region, the Athabasca Sand Dunes are located inwards the pump of a wetland too a boreal forest, making it 1 of the most unique sand dunes too a geological oddity. The dunes are spread across to a greater extent than than 30,000 hectares, too due to their unusual ecosystem, they harbor an extraordinarily various biological life.
Photo credit: Hidehiro Otake
The Athabasca Sand Dunes were formed virtually 8,000 to 9,000 years agone at the halt of the concluding glacial period. As the H2O ice canvas melted, meltwater washed enormous quantities of sand, silt too sediment from local sandstone into Lake Athabasca, whose H2O score was much higher too hence than it currently is. Then the lake receded, exposing the large sand deposits on the shores. The air current too hence molded the sand into the formations seen today, too it continues to create so, shaping too reshaping the dunes too pushing it into the surrounding forest.
The Athabasca Sand Dunes sits on exceed of a share known equally the Canadian Shield, which is a large surface area of exposed Precambrian rocks that forms the ancient geological nub of the North American continent. This bedrock covers one-half of Canada, too extends good into the northern reaches of the United States. They are amidst the oldest rocks on earth, dating from 2.5 to 4.2 billion years. This stone is covered yesteryear a sparse layer of soil, virtually xx meters thick, inwards the share where the dunes are located. The entire sandy region, including areas due south of the dunes, serves equally an enormous aquifer, which equally a lawsuit significantly affects industrial plant life life too dune development. Indeed, the dunes are dwelling to over iii hundred industrial plant life species of which virtually twoscore are rare too 10 or hence are endemic—in other words, industrial plant life nowhere else on earth.
Since the 1990s, the dunes create got their ain Provincial Park that protects the dunes too some of the surrounding areas. But reaching the dunes is non easy. There are no roads too the alone agency to access is yesteryear a float plane.
Lake Athabasca, Canada. In this false-color image, the H2O ice is low-cal blue, nighttime blueish is opened upwardly H2O too the sand dunes are white.
Photo credit: Tim Beckett/Flickr
