Loess has been used for housing because the angular grains form strong vertical walls, yet these walls are easy to cut into. Sand deposits form dunes . 34 o is about maximum steepness. Dunes at right angles to the wind are transverse dunes, common on seacoasts with a strong prevailing wind direction, and abundant sand. Barchans are crescentic dunes with the horns pointed downwind, found in areas of hard surface and limited sand supply, as in the Atacama desert of Chile and Peru.
Parabolic dunes are crescentic dunes with stabilized upwind horns.
Longitudinal dunes are huge features aligned roughly parallel to the main wind directions, as in Saudi Arabia. Desertification by overgrazing, injudicious cutting of trees, plowing, etc is a serious problem in much of the world. In the Sahel the desert shifted 160 km south in 17 years. In the USA these problems plus off-road vehicles are factors. Lake Bonneville in Utah and Lake Lahontan in the Great Basin of Nevada.