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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 

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