How can something that is constantly shifting stand up to 750 feet tall? This southwestern park features the largest sand dunes in North America, and the key to their extraordinary height seems to lie in the combination of strong opposing winds and the presence of rivers and creeks, which capture drifting sands and redeposit them back on the dunes. Some of these remarkable hills are formations known as star dunes, molded by complex wind patterns into multi-pronged shapes, which look a bit like starfish from above.

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