Holden Crater Dune Field

One Image of the Day topic was the north polar sand sea and isolated dune fields at lower latitudes. Sand seas on Earth are often called 'ergs', an Arabic name for dune field. A sand sea differs from a dune field in two ways: 1) a sand sea has a large regional extent, and 2) the individual dunes are large in size and complex in form. A common location for dune fields on Mars is in the basin of large craters. This dune field is located in Holden Crater. The floor of the crater is visible beneath/between the dunes indicating a hard surface conducive to sand movement.