Intermittency of aeolian saltation

Saltation motion of sand grains in a steady wind was measured using a high-speed camera at very high frequency in a wind tunnel. A Heaviside-type function was defined to quantificationally describe an inherent property of saltation, i.e. intermittency. Kurtosis and periodicity of state function are statistical manifestations of intermittency. In addition, the strong autocorrelation of time series of volume concentration clearly confirms that saltation is not a completely random process at the timescale of subsecond. Formation mechanism, especially turbulent structures responsible for intermittent saltation, remains to be revealed from the viewpoint of classical mechanics.