Nabkha

Nabkha around honey mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa) in California

A nabkha, nebkha or nebka is a type of sand dune. Other terms used include coppice dune and dune hummock or hummocky dune, but these more accurately refer to similar, but different, sand dune types.[1] Authors have also used the terms phytogenic hillock,[2] bush-mound, shrub-coppice dune, knob dune, dune tumulus, rebdou, nebbe, and takouit.[3]

In simplest terms, a nabkha is a sand dune that forms around vegetation.[1][2] It is an aeolian landform, a structure built and shaped by the action of wind.[3]

Nabkhas are common and occur in many regions. Well known nabkha fields occur in the Lut Desert of Iran, Arabian Desert of Kuwait,[2] the Hotan River Basin in Xinjiang, China,[4] and New Mexico in the United States and adjacent Chihuahua in Mexico.[1]