Sastrugi


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Related to Sastrugi: Antarctica
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Sastrugi

 

(also zastrugi). (1) Stationary narrow and crusted ridges that run in the direction of the wind; formed by wind erosion of snowbanks. Sastrugi may range in length from several centimeters to several meters (sometimes up to 1.3–1.5 m); they have steep windward slopes and gradual leeward slopes.

(2) Accumulations of fluvial sediment in a river bed in the form of a ridge near the shore; as the ridges grow in width, they become sandbars.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Our results show that the interactions between the rough surface scattering and reflection by layering can give large fourth Stokes parameter, and the large dips in the vertical and horizontal polarizations presented in the previous Sastrugi structure [5], are not seen in the two-layer Sastrugi structure.
In any case, every day we hike nine wildly strenuous miles across knee-high sastrugi and mud-sucking beaches, to look for dinosaur bones, and I can't drink at night and get through those hikes.
"That's the kind of stress you experience when you walk on snow and sastrugi (eroded snow)," he informed, adding jocularly.
Like Peary, we were able to maintain our course by traveling with sun, shadow, wind direction, and sastrugi (sharp irregular grooves or ridges formed on a snow surface by wind erosion and deposition)--and by checking our compasses in overcast or snowy conditions.
Windcarved snow ridges, called sastrugi, can create challenging obstacles.
Fierce winds had sculpted the hard-packed snow into a bewitching variety of sastrugi, shapes unlike anything you see in stone, dirt, or mud.
We skied over the sea ice, bridged the leads and clambered over the sastrugi, and my arrogance and incompetence lost me a finger-end to frostbite.
SASTRUGIZED of a snow surface formed into SASTRUGI, ridges of snow hardened by wind
The harsh weather created hundreds of sastrugi - waves of ice as large as hills - that he had to climb over.
"We are currently in sastrugi fields, where the ice is frozen into huge sharp ridges like a rough sea, so we have to weave in and out of the waves of ice."
Kay and her fellow adventurers will have to negotiate sastrugi, the ridges of wind-blown snow that are several feet high, before they reach the Geographic South Pole, perched on top of 10,000ft of ice.
Poor visibility all morning, ploughing through snow and tripping over sastrugi [wavey ridge of frozen snow].