I am motivated to post after a long hiatus. Last year (2010), in September, I went with my colleagues to the Red Desert in Wyoming. We participated in a Mars analog project at the Killpecker Dunes. In a Mars analog study, we research geologic features on Earth that look similar to features we observe on Mars, and with the assumption that the features were similarly formed, we gain knowledge about the structure of Mars.

In this particular project, our colleague at the Planetary Science Institute based in Tuscon, Arizona, wished to see if it were possible to detect ice buried within the dunes in Wyoming using a geophysical technique called ground-penetrating radar (GPR). It is rumored that these dunes do contain ice that does not melt from year-to-year. And there are dunes on Mars very similar to the barchan dunes in Wyoming.


We used the GPR on several dunes, but the one I will show here is in the upper-right of the photo below:

And Barchan dunes on Mars:



Our GPR profiles were collected by running a radar antenna across the ground. In the following photo, the radar antenna is the orange box and it has been placed in a sled for easy pulling. The blue cable coming from the antenna is attached to a data collector (computer) at the other end which can display the incoming radar signal.



Because the antenna maintains contact with the ground, but the resulting image is rectangular, it will need to be corrected for the changes in topography. Here are processed GPR images without the topographic correction. These were collected perpendicular to the main axis of the dune.



Once the profiles are corrected for topography, we can start to see how the layers beneath the surface of the dune are really oriented.



We also collected GPR data along the axis of the dune.