Sossusvlei's star dunes rise more than 300 m above the Namib Desert floor, ringing the white clay pan of Deadvlei where dead camel thorn trees have stood for centuries. Orbit the dune field, swap the color bands, and toggle the tree markers.
Published figures: Big Daddy dune stands about 325 m above Deadvlei, one of the tallest dunes on Earth; nearby Dune 45 rises about 170 m from 5-million-year-old sand; the dead camel thorn trees on the clay pan are estimated at 600-900 years old.
Drag to orbit and scroll or pinch to zoom. Everything renders on your device with WebGL.
Sossusvlei 3D Explorer
This browser explorer shows Sossusvlei as a field of star-shaped dunes rising from the Namib Desert floor, their radiating ridges built by wind blowing from several directions at once. At the foot of the tallest dune sits Deadvlei, a white clay pan holding the blackened skeletons of camel thorn trees that died centuries ago but never rotted away.
Sossusvlei sits inside Namib-Naukluft National Park in Namibia, part of the Namib Sand Sea UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Namib is considered the world's oldest desert, hyper-arid for roughly 55 to 80 million years, and some parts of it receive well under 10 mm of rain a year. The deep red-orange color of the older dunes comes from a coating of iron oxide - the redder the sand, the longer it has been oxidizing in place.
- Toggle iron-oxide color bands to contrast younger, paler sand against the deep red of older dune crests
- Toggle the Deadvlei tree markers on the white clay pan
- Read dune-height, desert-age, and tree-age figures in the panel
- See the star-dune shape formed by multi-directional wind
- Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom
- Runs fully in the browser with the vendored three.js engine - no account, no upload
| Figure | Published value |
|---|---|
| Big Daddy dune height | about 325 m above Deadvlei - one of the tallest dunes on Earth |
| Dune 45 height | about 170 m, built from about 5-million-year-old sand |
| Dune type | star dunes - multi-armed ridges shaped by shifting wind direction |
| Deadvlei trees | dead camel thorn trees, estimated 600-900 years old, preserved by extreme dryness |
| Namib Desert age | about 55-80 million years - widely cited as the world's oldest desert |
| Location | Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia |
For other extreme desert landscapes, open the Sahara Desert 3D Explorer (the world's largest hot desert) or the Atacama Desert 3D Explorer (one of the driest places on Earth).
Everything renders on your device with WebGL. The 3D engine loads once (about 0.7 MB) and is cached.
This is an educational approximation - the dune field, tree placement, and color bands are procedural teaching cues, not a survey of the actual terrain.
Frequently Asked Questions
How tall are the dunes at Sossusvlei?
Big Daddy, the tallest, rises about 325 m above Deadvlei - one of the tallest dunes on Earth. Dune 45, the most-visited, is about 170 m tall.
What is Deadvlei?
A white clay pan at the foot of the dunes, dried out when shifting sand cut it off from the Tsauchab River. Its dead camel thorn trees are estimated at 600-900 years old but have not decomposed because the climate is too dry.
Why are the dunes red?
Iron oxide coats the sand grains. Older dunes have had more time to oxidize, so they are deeper red - younger sand nearer the washes stays paler.
What is a star dune?
A dune with several ridges radiating from a central peak, built where wind blows from more than one direction over time - unlike a simple crescent dune shaped by wind from a single direction.
Where is Sossusvlei?
Inside Namib-Naukluft National Park in Namibia, part of the Namib Sand Sea UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Namib Desert, widely cited as the world's oldest desert.
Is this a geological simulation?
No. It is an educational explorer using published park and geographic figures - the dune field, tree placement, and color bands are procedural teaching cues.