desert exploration, aeolian research, founding Long Range Desert Group Bagnold number
Spouse
Dorothy Alice Bagnold
Military career
Service/branch
British Army
Years of service
1915−1935, 1939-1944
Rank
Brigadier
Service number
10231
Unit
Royal Engineers Royal Corps of Signals
Battles/wars
First World War Second World War
Part of the Bagnold Dune Field in Gale Crater on Mars, named to honour Brigadier Bagnold.
Brigadier Ralph Alger Bagnold, OBE,[1] FRS,[2] (3 April 1896 – 28 May 1990) was an English 20th-century desert explorer, geologist and soldier.
Bagnold served in the First World War as an engineer in the British Army.
In 1932, he staged the first recorded East-to-West crossing of the Libyan Desert. His work in the field of Aeolian processes was the basis for the book The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes, establishing the discipline of aeolian geomorphology, combining field work observations, experiments and physical equations.[3] His work has been used by United States' space agency NASA in its study of the terrain of the planet Mars, the Bagnold Dunes on Mars' surface were named after him by the organisation.[4][5][6][7][8]
He returned to the forces in the Second World War, in which he founded the behind-the-lines reconnaissance, espionage and raiding unit the "Long Range Desert Group", serving as its first commanding officer in the North Africa campaign.
^Documents online: Ralph Alger Bagnold's OBE, awarded 8 July 1941. The National Archives. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
^Kenn, M. J. (1991). "Ralph Alger Bagnold. 3 April 1896 – 28 May 1990". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 37: 56–68. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1991.0003. S2CID 72031353.
^Bagnold, R. A. (1971). The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes. London: Chapman & Hall. doi:10.1007/978-94-009-5682-7. ISBN 978-94-009-5684-1. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
^Bashir, Hira (12 December 2015). "NASA's Curiosity Rover Studies Mars Sand Dunes for the First Time". I4U News. Retrieved 21 December 2015.
^O'Connell-Cooper, C. D.; Spray, J. G.; Thompson, L. M.; Gellert, R.; Berger, J. A.; Boyd, N. I.; Desouza, E. D.; Perrett, G. M.; Schmidt, M.; VanBommel, S. J. (2017). "APXS-derived chemistry of the Bagnold dune sands: Comparisons with Gale Crater soils and the global Martian average". Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. 122 (12): 2623–2643. doi:10.1002/2017JE005268. ISSN 2169-9097.
^Bridges, Nathan T.; Ehlmann, Bethany L. (2018). "The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Bagnold Dunes Campaign, Phase I: Overview and introduction to the special issue". Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. 123 (1): 3–19. doi:10.1002/2017JE005401. ISSN 2169-9097.
^Baker, Mariah M.; Lapotre, Mathieu G. A.; Minitti, Michelle E.; Newman, Claire E.; Sullivan, Robert; Weitz, Catherine M.; Rubin, David M.; Vasavada, Ashwin R.; Bridges, Nathan T.; Lewis, Kevin W. (2018). "The Bagnold Dunes in Southern Summer: Active Sediment Transport on Mars Observed by the Curiosity Rover". Geophysical Research Letters. 45 (17): 8853–8863. doi:10.1029/2018GL079040. ISSN 0094-8276.
^O'Connell-Cooper, Catherine. "Recap of the Bagnold Dune Investigation". NASA Mars Exploration. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
Brigadier Ralph Alger Bagnold, OBE, FRS, (3 April 1896 – 28 May 1990) was an English 20th-century desert explorer, geologist and soldier. Bagnold served...
Bagnold may refer to: Enid Bagnold (1889–1981), author and playwright Millicent Bagnold, a character in the Harry Potter books RalphBagnold (1896–1990)...
(née Alger), and brought up mostly in Jamaica. Her younger brother was RalphBagnold. She attended art school in London, and then worked as assistant editor...
Ottoman Tripolitania became known as Libya.) In his book Libyan Sands, RalphBagnold went as far as to suggest that the Libyan Desert was a separate geographical...
flow with interstitial Newtonian fluid, first identified by Ralph Alger Bagnold. The Bagnold number is defined by B a = ρ d 2 λ 1 / 2 γ ˙ μ {\displaystyle...
deception hierarchy in Middle East Command had become muddled. Colonel RalphBagnold had taken over deception planning, pushing 'A' Force aside. Clarke was...
The Bagnold formula, named after Ralph Alger Bagnold, relates the amount of sand moved by the wind to wind speed by saltation. It states that the mass...
founded in Egypt in June 1940 by Major Ralph Alger Bagnold, acting under the direction of General Archibald Wavell. Bagnold was assisted by Captain Patrick Clayton...
distributions. The origin of the distribution is the observation by RalphBagnold, published in his book The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes (1941)...
never succeeded in finding it. Notable twentieth-century explorers RalphBagnold of Britain, and the Hungarian László (Ladislaus) Almásy led an expedition...
Sir Nigel Bagnall (1927—2002), Chief of the General Staff Brigadier RalphBagnold (1896—1990), Deputy Signal Officer-in-Chief Middle East Major-General...
(PDF), Brochures, Beijing: China National Petroleum Corporation, p. 9. RalphBagnold, 1939.[where?] Farouk El-Baz, in an entry for "Yardangs of the Western...
Clayton had collaborated extensively with RalphBagnold in the preparation and mapping associated with Bagnold's pre-war exploration trips. At the start...
The Bagnold Dunes is a 35-kilometre-long (22 mi) group of dark grey dunes in the Gale Crater on Mars. They are named after Ralph Alger Bagnold, who crossed...
Baden-Powell (1857–1941), soldier Sir Douglas Bader (1910–1982), fighter pilot RalphBagnold (1896–1990), founder of the Long Range Desert Group; explorer Sir Alexander...
monitoring and anticipating the moves of the British expedition led by RalphBagnold, on 17 October 1932 he made a daring flight over the lakes of Unianga...
Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes is a scientific book written by Ralph A. Bagnold. The book laid the foundations of the scientific investigation of the...
Sir Ralph David Richardson (19 December 1902 – 10 October 1983) was an English actor who, with John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, was one of the trinity...
mathematician (1937–2010) Amedeo Avogadro – Italian scientist (1776–1856) RalphBagnold – British Army officer Boris Bakhmeteff – Russian diplomatPages displaying...
1925) 27 May – Jessie MacWilliams, mathematician (born 1917) 28 May – RalphBagnold, geologist (born 1896) 30 May – Charles Morris, Baron Morris of Grasmere...
other relevant subjects. In this, he was influenced by the work of RalphBagnold. He also documented previously unknown Paleolithic sites and the historic...
Egyptian deserts in the 1920s and 30s with other Europeans such as RalphBagnold (founder of the Long Range Desert Group) and Patrick Clayton who were...
the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1922 for work on mass spectrometry. RalphBagnold, geo-morphologist, pioneering desert explorer, founder & commander of...
published 1935; reprinted by Eland in 2010) is a travel book, written by Ralph A. Bagnold, the founder of the British Army's Long Range Desert Group in the Second...
volunteered to join the Long Range Desert Group and was interviewed by Major RalphBagnold and Captain Bill Shaw in Cairo. He joined the LRDG and became its chief...
Prince Kamal al-Dine Hussein (son of Hussein Kamel, Sultan of Egypt) Ralph Alger Bagnold—Founder of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) and desert explorer...
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