Sign In
Learn bits
History & Culture
Mahesh

23/06/22 20:51 PM IST

There is a desert in Tamil Nadu and the dunes are red

In News
  • Most of us may not know the small desert situated in the state of Tamil Nadu. It consists of red sand dunes and is confined to Thoothukudi district.
  • The red dunes are called theri in Tamil. They consist of sediments dating back to the Quaternary Period and are made of marine deposits.
Features 
  • They have very low water and nutrient retention capacity.
  • The dunes are susceptible to aerodynamic lift.
  • The iron-rich heavy minerals like ilmenite, magnetite, garnet, hypersthene, and rutile present in the soil had undergone leaching by surface water and were then oxidized because of the favourable semi-arid climatic conditions giving them distinct red colour.
Theories behind formation 
  • The present-day theris might have been formed by the confinement of beach sand locally, after the regression of the sea. When high-velocity winds from the Western Ghats blew east, they induced migration of sand grains and accumulation of dunes
  • Theory 2: Another view is that these are geological formations that appeared in a period of a few hundred years.
  • Theory 3: The red sand is brought from the surface of a broad belt of red loam in the plains of the Nanguneri region by southwest monsoon winds during May-September.
Source- DTE 

More Related Current Affairs View All

17 Sep

Reasons Behind the heavy rain in Uttarakhand, Himachal

'Dehradun and several other districts in Uttarakhand have experienced very heavy rainfall over the past few days, triggering landslides in multiple areas and causing rivers to swel

Read More

08 Sep

Rajasthan’s coaching centre Bill

'The Rajasthan Coaching Centres (Control and Regulation) Bill, 2025, is a significant piece of legislation passed by the Rajasthan Assembly to regulate and oversee the state's burg

Read More

28 Aug

IADT-1

'Recently, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully carried out its first Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-1), a crucial milestone in the preparation for the countr

Read More

India’s First Ai-Driven Magazine Generator

Generate Your Custom Current Affairs Magazine using our AI in just 3 steps