Sand Hills of Nebraska

Click on Image to Enlarge  (JPG) Nebraska Sand Hills (3,568,160 bytes) ( 3,864 x 4,110 )

About a quarter of Nebraska is covered by the Sand Hills. These are Pleistocene (1.8-1.6 million to 10,000 years before present) sand dunes derived from glacial outwash eroded from the Rocky Mountains, and now stabilized by vegetation. The hills are characterized by crowded barchan (crescent-shaped) dunes, general absence of drainage, and numerous tiny lakes filling the closed depressions between dunes. Covering an area of 51,400 square kilometers, the Sand Hills are the largest sand dune formation in America. This ASTER simulated natural color image was acquired September 10, 2001, covers an area of about 57.9 x 61.6 km, and is centered near 42.1 degrees north latitude, 102.2 degrees west longitude.

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Nebraska Sand Hills Type: (JPG) Size: (3,568,160 bytes) Resolution ( 3,864 x 4,110 )