"Bret Cahill" wrote in message
...

Once the desert "pavement" is gone the resulting dust storms are very
destructive to machinery as well as lungs.

Tucson has very few dust storms. Sen. Feinstein probably saw _one_
dust storm and then and there decided to make the Mojave a national
park.


That leads to another interesting question, Mars has dust storms
too, and dust devils and so on. We're looking at a delicate dune
made of soft clay-like soil, crusted over with a thin layer of very small
pebbles. If the dune has a crust, it can't be migrating around like
just any sand dune. How long would you expect that crusted dune
to last on Mars? Or how long would it take for that crust to form?

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl-raw-ima...CAM00326M_.JPG


Bret Cahill