Sand Mountain formed originally from a glacier, you could say. 10,000 years ago, when glaciers filled the Sierra Nevada mountains the glacier runoff created a lake where the Sand Mountain currently is. After the lake dried up, its delta started collecting more and more particles until it finally got to where it is today. Over time the dune just kept getting bigger and bigger. Essentially Sand Mountain is a depositional feature with quartz rock parts. It formed with saltation and suspernsion of the quartz particles.
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