Another Ring...
Okay. Here's another Earthly ring. This one is in Africa. Any guesses? (See comments section for the answer)
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April 23, 2008
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Top of a volcanic crater, now a lake? You know I'm opening google as I'm typing....
Posted by: Morgan Mghee | April 23, 2008 at 11:55 PM
Oh, please tell me it's an impact crater! How incredibly cool and beautiful.
Posted by: Random Comment Generator | April 24, 2008 at 10:36 AM
Alas, it is NOT an impact crater. It's the Richat Structure in the Mauritanian Sahara Desert. It's a favorite of astronauts because it's so easy to identify. Geologists today tend to think of it as a case of weird uplift and erosion. There was a nice circular bulge in the Earth there, perhaps from a salt dome buoying up through the crust, and the layers were eroded away, creating a bunch of concentric circles. See the Wikipedia entry for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richat_Structure
Also, the colors are false to enhance the view of the layers. Awfully pretty though.
Posted by: Larry O'Hanlon | April 24, 2008 at 04:36 PM
Wow, isn't that amazing. Interesting that each of the rings seems to have what appears to be a river or runoff flow attached to it from above, and...doesn't it look like the rings at the bottom of a glass that the liquid slowly evaporated in? I switched to the terrain view in google, interesting but not enough information to see the 'lifting sinking' idea in action.
Posted by: Morgan Mghee | April 25, 2008 at 02:47 AM
Mind you, there is still a chance someone could find evidence that this is an meteor impact feature. That evidence would have to be mineral grains showing shock metamorphic features. I suspect that the remote location of the Richat Structure has made it expensive to study, and so there could be some surprises there. In the mean time it sure is good fodder for some armchair speculating.
Posted by: Larry O'Hanlon | April 28, 2008 at 04:13 PM
Mind you, there is still a chance someone could find evidence that this is an meteor impact feature. That evidence would have to be mineral grains showing shock metamorphic features. I suspect that the remote location of the Richat Structure has made it expensive to study, and so there could be some surprises there. In the mean time it sure is good fodder for some armchair speculating.
Posted by: Larry O'Hanlon | April 28, 2008 at 04:13 PM
It actually kind of looks like the site in Halo 3 where the Forerunner array creates a portal which transports things to the Ark. Well, besides the fact that it was in an arid place in Halo, though Halo 3 does take place in a good 500 years from now.
Posted by: Tru7h | September 01, 2008 at 10:29 AM
diamond mine
Posted by: mobs | September 11, 2008 at 01:16 PM