Ralph Bagnold

Ralph Alger Bagnold
FRS, OBE, KL
Born(1896-04-03)3 April 1896
Plymouth, Devon, England
Died28 May 1990(1990-05-28) (aged 94)
Known fordesert exploration,
aeolian research,
founding Long Range Desert Group
Bagnold number
SpouseDorothy Alice Bagnold
Military career
Service / branch British Army
Years of service1915−1935, 1939-1944
RankBrigadier
Service number10231
UnitRoyal Engineers
Royal Corps of Signals
Battles / warsFirst World War
Second World War
Part of the Bagnold Dune Field in Gale Crater on Mars, named to honour Brigadier Bagnold.

Brigadier Ralph Alger Bagnold, OBE,[1] FRS,[2] (3 April 1896 – 28 May 1990) was an English 20th-century desert explorer, geologist and soldier.

Bagnold served in the First World War as an engineer in the British Army.

In 1932, he staged the first recorded East-to-West crossing of the Libyan Desert. His work in the field of Aeolian processes was the basis for the book The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes, establishing the discipline of aeolian geomorphology, combining field work observations, experiments and physical equations.[3] His work has been used by United States' space agency NASA in its study of the terrain of the planet Mars, the Bagnold Dunes on Mars' surface were named after him by the organisation.[4][5][6][7][8]

He returned to the forces in the Second World War, in which he founded the behind-the-lines reconnaissance, espionage and raiding unit the "Long Range Desert Group", serving as its first commanding officer in the North Africa campaign.

  1. ^ Documents online: Ralph Alger Bagnold's OBE, awarded 8 July 1941. The National Archives. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
  2. ^ Kenn, M. J. (1991). "Ralph Alger Bagnold. 3 April 1896 – 28 May 1990". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 37: 56–68. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1991.0003. S2CID 72031353.
  3. ^ Bagnold, R. A. (1971). The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes. London: Chapman & Hall. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-5682-7. ISBN 978-94-009-5684-1. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  4. ^ Bashir, Hira (12 December 2015). "NASA's Curiosity Rover Studies Mars Sand Dunes for the First Time". I4U News. Retrieved 21 December 2015.
  5. ^ O'Connell-Cooper, C. D.; Spray, J. G.; Thompson, L. M.; Gellert, R.; Berger, J. A.; Boyd, N. I.; Desouza, E. D.; Perrett, G. M.; Schmidt, M.; VanBommel, S. J. (2017). "APXS-derived chemistry of the Bagnold dune sands: Comparisons with Gale Crater soils and the global Martian average". Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. 122 (12): 2623–2643. doi:10.1002/2017JE005268. ISSN 2169-9097.
  6. ^ Bridges, Nathan T.; Ehlmann, Bethany L. (2018). "The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Bagnold Dunes Campaign, Phase I: Overview and introduction to the special issue". Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. 123 (1): 3–19. doi:10.1002/2017JE005401. ISSN 2169-9097.
  7. ^ Baker, Mariah M.; Lapotre, Mathieu G. A.; Minitti, Michelle E.; Newman, Claire E.; Sullivan, Robert; Weitz, Catherine M.; Rubin, David M.; Vasavada, Ashwin R.; Bridges, Nathan T.; Lewis, Kevin W. (2018). "The Bagnold Dunes in Southern Summer: Active Sediment Transport on Mars Observed by the Curiosity Rover". Geophysical Research Letters. 45 (17): 8853–8863. doi:10.1029/2018GL079040. ISSN 0094-8276.
  8. ^ O'Connell-Cooper, Catherine. "Recap of the Bagnold Dune Investigation". NASA Mars Exploration. Retrieved 20 October 2023.