Ripples formed in low-pressure wind tunnels suggest Mars’s large windblown ripples are not impact ripples

Sand ripples record interactions between planetary surfaces and environmental flows, providing paleoenvironmental archives when preserved into rocks. Two main ripple types form in sand: drag ripples, common in water, and impact ripples, exclusive to windblown surfaces. Enigmatic meter-scale aeolian ripples on Mars have been assumed to be impact ripples, though ground and orbiter-based observations suggest they may be drag ripples instead. Here, we report on low-pressure wind tunnel experiments in which large ripples formed and evolved from a flat bed. Observations demonstrate that impact and large ripples grow from distinct mechanisms. Large-ripple size aligns with predictions from drag-ripple theory, and associated sand fluxes are greater than predicted for impact ripples. These findings are inconsistent with an impact-ripple origin and instead suggest that large martian ripples are drag ripples. Windblown drag ripples constitute an untapped record of atmospheric evolution on planetary bodies with tenuous or ephemeral atmospheres across the Solar System.