Technologies in the Study of Yardangs of Lut Desert, Iran

Lut Desert Eastern Iran with an extent of about 80,000 square Kilometers includes a great diversity of hydroaeolian processes with a very striking pattern of landforms. Due to very poor or non- accessibility of some landforms in Lut Desert, it has not received much attention. To the authors knowledge not so many research was published about Lut Desert, specially no particular study was performed on Yardangs using Landsat satellite Thematic Mapper ( TM) data. Yardang which is a wind abraded ridges of cohesive materials (Mc Cauley et al., 1976), is one of the most interesting geomorphological features in Deserts. Yardangs are parallel ridges of Lacustrine sediments between wind-scoured furrows aligned with the dominant wind. Deserts have experienced great temporal and spatial variability of these endogenetic process in Iran, the Lut Desert are apparently tectonically unstable area (Cooke et al., 1993). There have been several recent studies of Desert air/soil surface/rock temperatures (Alavi panah, 1997). Thermal property of a material is representative of upper several centimeters of the surface. As in thermal remote sensing we measure the emitted radiation, it proves to b