Olympia Undae
Olympia Undae is a vast dune field in the north polar region of the planet Mars. It consists of a broad "sand sea" or erg that partly rings the north polar plateau (Planum Boreum) from about 120° to 240°E longitude and 78° to 83°N latitude. Stretching about 1,100 km (680 mi) across and covering an area of 470,000 km2, Olympia Undae is the largest continuous dune field on Mars. It is similar in size to the Rub' Al Khali in the Arabian Peninsula, the largest active erg on Earth.
Olympia Undae lies within the informally named Borealis basin (also called the north polar basin), the largest of three topographic basins that occur in the northern lowlands of Mars. The average elevation in Olympia Undae is about 4,250 m below datum (martian "sea" level). The 19-km-diameter crater Jojutla lies near the geographic center of Olympia Undae at 81.63°N latitude and 169.65°E longitude.This crater was named by Andres Eloy Martinez Rojas, Mexican astronomer and science writer.
Unda (pl. undae) is a Latin term meaning water, particularly water in motion as waves. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) adopted the term to describe "undulatory," dune-like features on other planets. Olympia Undae contains a variety of dune forms and wind-related (aeolian) depositional features, including sand sheets, transverse dunes, simple barchan dunes, mega-barchans, and complex barchanoid ridges. All of these dune types occur on Earth too.
Barchans are isolated, crescent-shaped dunes with horns that point downwind. They occur is areas where sand supply is moderate to low. Small simple barchan dunes and large mega-barchans are common at the margins of Olympia Undae and in areas where the sand cover is thin. Barchanoid ridges are broad linear to sinuous sand accumulations. They form through the lateral coalition of individual barchans and indicate increasing sand supply. Where sand is abundant, transverse dunes occur; they are commonly defined as long barchaoid ridges with fairly straight segments that are perpendicular to the wind direction. The majority of dunes in Olympia Undae are transverse dunes. Their spacing ranges from 200 to 800 m apart crest to crest, and comparison to terrestrial dunes with similar spacing indicates that they are 10 to 25 m high.
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