GPR Investigation of the Nebraska Sandhills

Abstract

The Nebraska Sandhills are 19,300 square miles of vegetated linear aeolian dunes in the Great Plains region, in north-central Nebraska. The goal of the ground penetrating radar (GPR) research on the Nebraska Sandhills is to learn about the formation of linear aeolian dunes and the evolution of climate. Aeolian dunes are wind-blown deposits of loose sand and sediment which can vary in form and height. Aeolian processes are a type of geomorphological procedure in which winds move fine grain sediments, therefore causing the entire dunes to migrate over long periods of time. As the climate in the Nebraska Sandhills has become less arid, vegetation stabilized the dunes roughly 800-1,000 years ago. Linear dunes are a type of longitudinal dune which are characterized by elongation by advancing parallel to the dune rather than side to side. There are multiple theories on how linear aeolian dunes are formed including the helical roll theory, the wind rift theory, and the bimodal wind theory.