Faceted Wind Stones

Faceted Wind Stones is an original illustration set in Central Namib Gravel Plain. It lies in the tropics, where the climate is hot desert — evaporation far outruns rainfall.

Angular stones lie with two or three flat polished faces meeting at sharp keels. Fine parallel abrasion lines run across the windward surfaces. The ground is dark desert pavement of tightly packed pebbles, and nothing grows anywhere in the frame.

Why are these stones cut into flat facets?

A ventifact is a stone sandblasted by wind. Each flat face records a period when that side pointed into the wind; the keels between them are where two such periods met, which means the stone was moved or the wind shifted. The desert pavement itself is a related process — wind has removed every particle small enough to lift, leaving an armour of pebbles behind.

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