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In some of the world’s desert and desert-marginal areas (e.g.Simpson/Strzelecki, Australia) dunefields preserve well-developed palaeosols, whereas in other regions with broadly similar climatic regimes and topography (e.g.southwest Kalahari), the dunes are characterized by very poorly developed internal stratigraphy. It has been postulated that dunes such as those in the Kalahari may never have had conditions conducive to soil formation, or that soils once formed but any evidence of palaeosols has been lost due to reworking. This study develops and applies a one-dimensional numerical model to simulate dune development, soil formation and soil preservation. Variables in the model allowed experimentation on the influence of sediment supply, the time taken for soil to form, and the additional resistance to erosion offered by the soil. Reduced sediment supply plays a vital role in landscape development during periods of initial pedogenesis. Although re-exhumed palaeosols influence sediment supply, the effect is minimal. Although under almost all parameterized conditions more than half (and up to 80-90%) of those soils initially formed are lost due to reworking, evidence of their past formation remains in the large majority of profiles, and the dominant factor in controlling the preservation of palaeosols is the frequency of their formation. The implication is that where dunes are found without palaeosols, the most likely (albeit not certain) inference is that they have never formed. Counter-intuitively, the limited sediment supply means their additional resistance to erosion becomes almost inconsequential to their preservation, at least until the unit approaches complete invulnerability. Short chronostratigraphic hiatuses around palaeosols are normal, and although long gaps can occur, they are extremely infrequent. Where such gaps are observed in field studies, external forcing factors (e.g.climatic or environmental changes) are implied, as they are highly unlikely to result from stochastic net preservation. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.