This strange surreal landscape, like a Salvador Dal Dali painting, is the work of the wind.
I knew that there are rocks that have been shaped by the wind, sandblasted in effect, and something put that into my mind, so I looked it up. The objects so formed are called ventifacts and are formed when the wind has one or more prevailing directions
and the landscape is barren so rock pillars are unprotected. The mushroom shape of rocks like that in the picture comes about because the wind cannot lift the sand grains very far off the ground, so the parts higher up are affected much less.
Ventifacts
This strange surreal landscape, like a Salvador Dal Dali painting, is the work of the wind.
I knew that there are rocks that have been shaped by the wind, sandblasted in effect, and something put that into my mind, so I looked it up. The objects so formed are called ventifacts and are formed when the wind has one or more prevailing directions and the landscape is barren so rock pillars are unprotected. The mushroom shape of rocks like that in the picture comes about because the wind cannot lift the sand grains very far off the ground, so the parts higher up are affected much less.
Amazlingly it's believed ventifacts have been identified on Mars, see https://llis.nasa.gov/lesson/22401.
Picture credit: Thomas Wilken, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventifact#/media/File:Im_Salar_de_Uyuni.jpg