There is tons of good points in this article. One thing I find very interesting, is the image gap from 2003-2006. 2003 and 2004 were extremely hard pack years for the playa (due to extremely large amounts of winter weather) and if I recall right, there were very few instances of "playa serpents" on the flats those years. Multiple images from the web, supposedly taken in 2004, seem to back up this assumption. I believe the Burning Man festival does have a large impact on these playa serpents, as more loose material gets kicked up during that event than any other time in black rock, which would be reasonable to assume would take more to recover from. I believe the serpents are caused more by low amounts of saturation in the playa surface than the event itself. Perhaps the amount of precipitation needed to restore the surface is much greater now, or that it needs to remain on the surface for longer, but I don't think Mr. Brooks is correct in assuming the event is the main factor in these playa serpents.

Hi Mastersodium,
I'm the author of the Black Rock Dunes site, many thanks for your feedback on it. When I started the site, I was focusing on finding the pre-2000 photos of dunes, which is why there are not so many photos of dunes post-2000. Still, I think the site would be better with more post-2000 dune photos, so I've added a todo note. My recollection of the years after 2000 was that the dunes have been there, each year getting worse, especially when compared with pre-2000. Of course, this is just my recollection, some photos would help. The 2009 photo of the 2007 trash fence and the 2008 roads is rather compelling.

For an analysis of the dunes that was done in 2000, see http://sites.google.com/site/blackrockdunes/2000_Young_PreliminaryAnalys...
That study indicates that the dunes are deposited on top of the surface, probably by wind.

The Black Rock Desert is definitely getting more visitors than it used to, and Burning Man is by far the largest event in terms of visitor-days. My sense from driving across the desert and from being on the desert after the event is that a large amount of dust comes off from the BRC site in a North/South direction and then gets moved around.

The desert has not had a lot of standing water on it lately, I think we agree that a few inches of standing water would go a long way to flattening the dunes. One of the areas I'd like to explore is to get a sense of the rainfall over the last few decades. I took a look and found some data, but there are gaps. Another good next step would be to do a formal survey of the dunes so we get sense of whether they are increasing or decreasing.
Anyway, thanks again for the feedback.
_Christopher

Yes, I think some good post-2000 photos would be good as well, if nothing else, to show how much worse the problem is getting (I agree, that I notice much more instances of serpents just since 2000). I can definitely agree that the increased visitor use, and burning man, do have a huge impact to the amount of dust, which would then turn into playa serpents. As a burning man attendee, I can see the large amount of dust dunes left post-event in camps, by art pieces and such, and know that dust has to go somewhere.

I did not spend alot of time in the desert in 2003 or 2004, so my recollection could be wrong as well. Maybe I just didn't notice serpents, or don't remember them. You can take pictures now that make it appear as though its perfectly flat with no serpents, so any pictures I am finding may be lucky to not have serpents, and not indicative of the actual conditions.

The trash fence photo and subsequent dune that created is very compelling, as are the persistent road markings there to this day (even from as far back as the 98 event). If you look on google earth, you can even still see road markings from the 1997 event on the jualapai playa, which was only one year held there, and rather low attendance compared to today, which I find to be rather interesting as well.

What would be really good (although very unlikely) would be to start gathering data regarding the amount of standing water on the playa each year, which I'm sure doesn't exist right now (and probably isn't likely to exist anytime soon), but I think tracking rainfall/precipitation would be a good start, along with a dune survey, and begin comparing data.

Thank you for putting together this assesment. It is a rather informative, and very interesting article, which certainly makes you think. I love anything about playa dynamics, and hope more information begins coming out regarding the black rock desert and its constantly changeing landscape.

Just a quick update on the Black Rock Desert Dunes.

I recently contacted James T. Neal, the author of the 1970 article that has a photo of the dunes. Dr. Neal said that the photo was from 1963 or 1964. Dr. Neal is certain of this because the man in the photo left his employ in 1964. So, this means that there is no way that the dunes in the 1963-64 picture were caused by Heizer's 1968 land art piece.