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Britain's desert dunes

Hot dry winds sand-blasted rocks to yield yet more sand, which drifted into dunes that overwhelmed the supercontinent, including little Britain - and Runcorn and Rhyll. The pattern of these dunes is still preserved. They can even tell us which way the wind was blowing as it formed them. Cut and smoothed, this Scottish sandstone graces many a building in Edinburgh and south of the border. These deserts were vast and extended as far south as Devon. On the other side of the tracks at Dawlish, sandmartins find their weaker, softer layers an ideal summer home. In between the raging deserts of Devon and Scotland, the dunes of Staffordshire at the Kinver Edge have been home to mason bees for centuries.

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