Calculation of the Rub’ al Khali Sand Dune Volume for Estimating Potential Sand Sources

The Rub’ al Khali desert (or Empty Quarter) is the largest and perhaps most significant sand sea in world. Located on southern Arabian Peninsula, dune field has remained largely unexplored owing to harsh clime difficult terrain. This study takes advantage of geospatial technology (interpolations, supervised classification, minimum focal statistic) extract information from data contained global Digital Elevation Model (DEM)s, satellite imagery. main objective here identify map different forms within sea, estimate volume explore probable sources sand. analysis color strongly suggests that not completely reworked intermixed. If this true, a spatial variability mineral composition could be very revealing. red quite pronounced, (~36%) associated with yellow class. Yellow covers western part dunes seems transitional between white eastern field. might derived both local regional sources, or it less oxidized, reworked, have represents combination