Wearing a helmet and strapped securely into his four-wheel-drive, Abdelilah al-Rabea tore off across the Saudi desert, ...

Erin Argyilan was wrapping up a scientific study of wind speeds on Mount Baldy last year when she saw a circle of beachgoers on their knees halfway up the hulking sand dune. They appeared to be ...

This story appears in the November 2012 issue of National Geographic magazine. I got my first lesson in the physics of sand dunes in 1998 on an expedition into the Sahara. In order to take aerial ...

Over time, many beaches will naturally replenish. But sand dunes will take longer. And there are areas where the damage will linger. Cyclone Alfred travelled up and down the coast for a fortnight ...