The Richat Structure, Oudane, Mauritania, is not really a structure but a huge circular formation (50 km in diameter - 30 miles), that resembles an eye when looked upon from space. Originally thought to be a crater, this volcanic dome is most likely a product of erosion, an ancient geological artifact in the middle of featureless Maur Adrar desert, in Africa's Western Sahara. The earliest space missions used it as a landmark, the adventurous 4x4 enthusiasts consider it to be their playground, and scientists are still debating its origin.
The Google Maps coordinates are 21.124217, -11.395569
We even found some Photoshop of this eye, combining it into an Optimus Prime-like face:
(image credit: Lebovski)
The meteorite impact theory could not explain the flatness of the "crater"'s floor, so the most accepted explanation is the erosion of the initial volcanic dome, which gradually peeled away the layers of rock, creating the present onion-like form.
This image was taken by an Expedition 15 crew member on the International Space Station. (via Space.com)
The following picture must have simulated color, for it looks almost like a fantastic lake:
(image credit: United States Geological Survey - USGS)
"Paleozoic quartzites form the resistant beds outlining the structure." (GSA Journals) A couple of other simulated images to illustrate that:
The topographical 3-D relief image, found on Wikipedia, shows "Le Guelb ri Richat" in most detail (The view is exaggerated six times vertically, the colors are slightly enhanced):
Here is a portion of this visualization, looking like landscape on some other planet:
Credit: NASA/JPL/NIMA
Johnnie Shannon image-enhanced the satellite image, clearly showing an eroded circular anticline (structural dome) of layered sedimentary rocks:
and Christoph Hormann created a spectacular view, using various modeling software:
Barren landscape is a welcome challenge to 4x4 enthusiasts
You might think that this area is so remote and hostile that hardly anyone visits there. You would be quite wrong. There are companies offering organized tours, especially of the off-roading variety. Manfred Schweda from This Fab Trek has some good imagery of such journeys:
Surprisingly, there is also a hotel smack in the middle of the Richat Structure. It's nothing luxurious, but adequate accommodations to the tired "Mad Max" kinds of tourists:
The Longest Train in the World
The area around "the guelb" is interesting as well: F'Derik, one of the biggest iron mines in the world is located about 100 miles southeast. The iron ore produced there is exported all the way to the Atlantic port of Nouadhibou, via a 419-mile (674-kilometre) railway, which is the longest non-stop railroad in the world... (no passengers allowed).
The train from Nouadhibou to Choum is the longest train in the world. Its chain of cars can be up to three kilometres long.
To give you a taste of exploring Google satellite imagery, there is a site IntrepidEarth displaying the most unusual sightings. The following image of "Earth face with an iPod" is located in Alberta, Canada (Long/Lat: 50.01,-110.11):
It turns out our planet has many faces, eyes, noses, ears and anything you can imagine - if you look hard enough. Truly fascinating sculptures of Nature.
(images credit: NASA/GSFC/MITI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team)
Two of the most entertaining SF novels from the 1980s
(for other weekly "Biscotti" issues - see our main page and monthly archives)
COMMENTS:
4 Comments:
Erick Aguilar said...
I wanted to say that the Iron Train that runs from Zouerate to the coast at Nouadhibou, is not the longest train.. There was one in australia measuring 4.8 Miles (7.3Kilometers) And there is another in the United States, i don't remember if the raiload was located in colorado,but it's 4.5 kilometers long. But if you aim for ''Today's Longest Train'' you got that right!
Like all Craters on every planet, (besides maybe the domed craters of mars which are giagantic concretions) they were carved by electricity. That is why they are all circular.
Avi, you have used numerous times Mrbabyman to digg you stories & failed miserable. Now you want to cash on the sentiments of the people by using events of 9-11 & I should appreciate the timing of your post & choice of your digger. Shame on you & how can you call yourself a blogger? Just to make a quick buck, want to divert traffic from digg to your senseless post? Avoid such cheap gimmicks!
I don't think that is what he is trying to do. Almost every website today is commemorating 9/11, is he not allowed to? It would be kinda silly if he posted this blog a fews from now while everyone else is talking about it today!
Avi, I recently stumbled upon your website, and to be honest I think it is a great website/blog. Keep up the good work...and forget about the critics. You can never make EVERYONE happy.
As if being a blogger is some kind of honor. Big deal - you sign up for a free account and write about whatever pops into your head.
At least Avi is doing something useful with his blog - entertaining us. Where else would I get my updates on weird happenings and inventions?
Other bloggers post daily updates about how someone gave them 2 sugars instead of 3 in their coffee, taking up useful disk space and bandwidth. Avi, keep up the good work, you have one of the most useful blogs out there.
I call bullshit on the stamp. The US Postal Service has never issued a stamp like that. It's a clever photoshop. Notice the bottom is cut off where the caption/denomination of the stamp would be. The postmark doesn't look correct either.
Hey folks, you do realize that the internet is just like the TV or radio? If you don't like it, don't read it.
I think this was a fascinating subject, especially how the Twin Towers seemed to be a really popular symbol of the U.S. overseas, perhaps moreso than it was in the U.S. itself.
It's been six years. There's only so many tears than can be shed in that time.
Who are these people who come on this blog and say "I find this distasteful." Are friggin nuts? Have you ever seen what ELSE is out there that the majority of sane people actually find distasteful?
I was in NY on 9/11 and my wife was one of those people who ran from the towers. There is NOTHING offensive or distasteful about this post.
SHAME SHAME shame on you people who judge. You need a reality check.
Critics tend not have the ability to think for themselves.
And in other media we have the pilot episode of the "X-Files" spin-off series "The Lone Gunmen" in which there is a plot to crash a passenger jet into the WTC in order to justify a foreign war.
(The conspiracy nuts have been having fits over this one)
There is also a children's book about flying a 747, the title of which escapes me at the moment. One page shows the view of the WTC from the cockpit. I don't know when the book was printed; probably late 80s/early 90s.
Speaking of 9/11 coincidences, the WTC attack was actually the second time in 2001 when Muslim radicals destroyed two towering structures before an outraged world.
Remember the giant stone Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, laid low by the Taliban a few months before September 11th?
This guy really predicted the attacks . He´s name is Benjamin Solari Parravicini, he´s argentinian and take a look what he has drawn http://www.losenigmas.com.ar/images/bspwtc.jpg
the text says "The North American freedom will lost his light, its torch will no longer be lighter like yesterday, and the monument will be attacked twice" ... scary!
Noone says anything about the Lone Gunmen pilot premiered months before the attack. In that story the heroes saved the two towers from the attack of a plane organized by the government.
Dream Theater also had a cover depicting New York (and the WTC) in flames*— released on September 11th, 2001. They recalled it and issued new artwork but my husband has a copy of the original cover because he had been eagerly awaiting the album. (The image is at the bottom of the page.)
*One of the band's recurring symbols is a flaming heart in barbed wire— they'd just added the NY skyline to that image.
Don't forget the movie "Escape From New York," which starts when terrorists hijack Air Force One and crash it into a Manhattan skyscraper. I'd say that gave the terrorists some ideas.
I pretty much liked the "Asbestos Poster". But don't make the mistake to think about how asbestos was going to save the WTC on 9/11, The thermite and C4 explosives used to bring down the three world trade center buildings were placed with surgical precision.No one could of save these poor souls...
On Sept. 11, Jackie Chan was supposedly about to start filming a movie at the World Trade Center where he fights terrorists who want to blow it up. See http://www.snopes.com/rumors/jackchan.htm
There's also a painting by Alex Grey (Fans of the music group, Tool, will know who he is), entitled Gaia, depicting two planes flying towards two towers while Bush Sr., Saddam Hussein and a phallic looking demon-creature are walking together, arm-in-arm in the foreground. Its nearly impossible to see the detail from the image on his site (http://www.alexgrey.com/), but if anyone wants to see it, up-close, there's a video about it on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08R8tgvXa7o
Makes you wonder.. At the risk of getting flamed here. I dont really think the U.S. did not know this was going to happen and I also think that the U.S Big wigs were behind it in some way. You see how most of our so called presidents love to play war games.
I was in the Military/ I know the bull shit that gets fed to the public and what really goes on behind closed doors.
Hi, I would like to tell you something that happend to me, I had a dream about the twin towers and a huge explosion about a week before it happend. My dream was strange to me, and at that time I did not understande it, I had never seen or even thought about the twin toweres so you can understande the shock I felt the day I heard the news on the radio, about 9 11, in my dream there were two very large buildings side by side one had a purple light around it and the other a green light, ( that part about the colores I still do not understande.) anyway I was standing out side with the towers in plane view, suddanly there was a huge explosion (I did not see the plane in my dream thou) however after they explosion there was dabree and ash flying ever were. There may be people who do not beleve what I have written however this is they hounest truth. I Wish this had not come to pass and to all those who lost someone in this terrible event, I am truly sorry for your loss pain and suffering it has brought.
In early 2001 I was designing a computer simulation of a tensegrity model where you could build a structure and test it's strength, and one of the ideas was to test the strength of the model by flying aeroplanes of varying sizes into it (inspired by a game called BridgeBuilder where you test the strength of a bridge by driving a train across it). On the splash screen of this game would have been an illustration of the B-25 bomber that crashed in to the Empire State Building in 1945.
I was distracted by other projects so I never completed it (thankfully!) but on September 11th 2001 the friend who I had been discussing this idea with phoned me up to say "Remember that building simulation game we were discussing earlier this year? Turn on the telly!"
I turned on the television to see a replay of the second plane hitting the South Tower. My immediate thought was "That was my idea! Bastards got there before me!" before the horror of it all sunk in.
Premonition? I don't know - certainly not a supernatural freaky one. There was a lot of anxiety about working in skyscrapers and terrorist attacks - a friend of my mother's had warned her son not to accept a job in the Canary Wharf Tower, London, because the West had made a lot of enemies and tall buildings were vulnerable to attack. That fear was certainly around before the events of 9/11.
My idea, strangely enough, is still on the back burner...
Around the time of the attacks, a German DIY store chain ran a billboard campaign which showed the glass-roofed shopping arcade (destroyed in the attacks) near the World Trade Center and the bases of the towers. Oddly enough, the slogan of the campaign was "Lamps make every space beautiful".
One of the billboards was left up for several months after September 2001. They probably forgot to remove it.
Don't forget the King Kong remake poster,whic had the big guy straddling the two towers ,or "Godzilla vs Magalon," the poster for which had them battling atop them. I was amazed at Chris Carter's series "The Lone Gunman," which had as a plot, a government faction remotely controlling a plane to crash into the towers in order to start a war with the terrorist countries, for weapsons sales.
Ha! I'd like to see what happens to the Moovie when it hits a DC pothole. I love it when designers forget about such things as practicality and functionality. It should be a requirement for designers to have to live with/use their own monstrosities before they inflict them upon the public...
I can tall you what it in side...restaurant for very reach Russians only!prices in side are similar to prices at St'Peterburg Marriot.All Castel is owned by Russian Oligarch and it was renovated by him.
The car on the carrier wasnt photoshopped, it didnt have anything in it either, its was a demonstration of the 'new' nuclear / steam powered catapult system.
the picture of the korean military woman on skates remindet me, that the frech police in paris does have a skate-squad. a picture can be found here: http://cucinatestarossa.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/police_rollerblades.jpg
the members of this skate-squad are former ice-hockey players. so its not the most intelligent act to piss those guys off. =)
but i must admit that i never have seen them by myself. i have been only once to paris for 24 hours, tho. ~=)
I once, about 4000 yrs ago when in eighth grade made a thumb piano. I inserted straightened hairpins into the separated layers of my plywood desk top. Only thing I ever got away with in school. Drove Sr. Mary to distraction.
For unusual instruments, you should check the website of Argentina's Les Luthiers. It's all in Spanish, but you will get to see each instrument and even listen to them.
These guys are absolutely amazing, they can compose and play anthing from classical to merengue to rap to military marches, etc.
Sometimes, just sometimes, they use 'normal' musical instruments... :-)
WHY would you put a Steinway in the water! AHH! :P
I just wonder how some of these actually sound. Since that is what an instrument is suppose to do... make sound. I have a feeling that some of these would sound horrible. Cool designs tho...
You're right, that musical instrument site does occupy a lot of one's time! I never realized there were so many different instruments in the world. Have you seen the Ringing Singing Tree?
"QUANTUM SHOT" #271
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4 Comments:
I wanted to say that the Iron Train that runs from Zouerate to the coast at Nouadhibou, is not the longest train..
There was one in australia measuring 4.8 Miles (7.3Kilometers)
And there is another in the United States, i don't remember if the raiload was located in colorado,but it's 4.5 kilometers long.
But if you aim for ''Today's Longest Train'' you got that right!
You should check out www.thunderbolts.info
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050811richatrevisit.htm
Like all Craters on every planet, (besides maybe the domed craters of mars which are giagantic concretions) they were carved by electricity. That is why they are all circular.
the link of intrepidearth is uncorrect. Is 'dot' net instead of 'dot'com
Thank you. Link fixed.
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