A Half Century of Developments in Desert Geomorphology and the Place of A. T. Grove

Abstract

Over the last half century there have been many major advances in the study of desert landforms and land-forming processes. Some of these have been facilitated by the establishment of permanent research stations, and others have resulted from the development of applied work on desert hazards, and from the desire to find analogues for desert phenomena on Mars and other planetary bodies. However, some of the most striking developments have arisen as a result of the availability of a range of new techniques: remote sensing from space, the use of data loggers to monitor processes, laboratory simulations of both weathering and dune formation, the use of Ground Penetrating Radar to look at dune structures, the use of GPS to facilitate survey work, the employment of optical dating and other techniques to date dunes, dust deposits and other landforms, the use of new petrographic and mineralogical techniques to study surface materials, the development of computer modelling; and the application of new techniques for high resolution environmental reconstruction. As a result of these developments we now have greatly improved knowledge of desert processes, the history of deserts, and the distribution and significance of many landforms.