Bright dust devil tracks on Earth: Implications for their formation on Mars

We report on the first observations of bright dust devil tracks (BDDTs) on Earth, observed in the Turpan depression desert in northwestern China, where raindrop impacts on sand surfaces form aggregates of sand, silt and clay resulting in rough surface textures, which are destroyed by passages of dust devils leading to smooth surface textures within the tracks. The differences in photometric properties between the track and outside the tracks cause the albedo differences leading to the formation of BDDTs and similar processes might lead to BDDTs on Mars in areas with thick dust covers.