A pleistocene sand sea on the Alaskan arctic coastal plain

A ridge and thermokarst-basin landscape that is strikingly portrayed in Landsat winter imagery consists of large Pleistocene dunes that have been modified by younger eolian activity and thermokarst processes. This is the most extensive area of large stabilized dunes yet reported in the North American Arctic; the landscape is of particular interest because it has been proposed as a first-order analogfor martian fretted terrain. Recognition ofthe large dunes permits a new interpretation for linear and curvilinear trends visible in Landsat summer imagery.