Yardang
Topic: Landforms and their Evolution: Rivers, Groundwater, Glaciers, Waves and Wind · NCERT: Class 9, Ch 2 "Shaping of the Earth's Surface"
Meaning
A yardang is a long, smooth ridge of rock in a desert. It runs in the same direction as the main wind. Blown sand scrapes away the softer rock between harder bands. The harder rock is left as ridges, with grooves between them. Like a boat's hull, a yardang is shaped smooth by the wind, and its direction shows which way the wind usually blows.
Example
The Lut Desert in eastern Iran has some of the world's largest yardangs. They are long rows of rock ridges carved by strong, steady winds.
Don't confuse with
- Longitudinal dune: also lies along the wind direction, but it is a ridge of loose sand, not solid rock carved by wind.
- Mushroom rock: a single rock with a thin stalk and broad cap, not a long ridge.
Related concepts
- Aeolian processes
- Deflation
- Wind abrasion
- Sheet flood
- Erg, reg and hamada
- Pediment
- Parallel retreat of slopes
- Pediplain
- Inselberg
- Playa