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Stone pavements arc armored surfaces comprising intricate mosaies of coarse particles, usually only one or two stones thick, set on or in fine material. They occur widely in many unvegetated areas, and preeminently in hot deserts. Pavement studies in several deserts, and especially in Chile and California, suggest that: 1) deflation may be a relatively unimportant process of pavement formation; 2) running water, and processes causing upward migration of coarse particles through the soil may effect coarse particle concentration at the surface; 3) various superficial disintegration processes may break up coarse particles and increase particle density; 4) the ways in which pavements are established, their rates of formation, and the relative importance of the different processes, may vary greatly from place to place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]