The Zones of Kilimanjaro

Tanzania

Stories about Mount Kilimanjaro often focus on its height and location. The tallest mountain in Africa is capped with snow and ice,

despite sitting near the Equator. But it is also compelling for a different reason: To get to the icy summit, you must pass through

incredibly diverse vegetation zones. The mountain rises from the hot, dry savanna, through rainforest and hardy scrublands, to a

rocky and icy summit.

Colorful Faults of Xinjiang

China

Just south of the Tien Shan mountains, in northwestern Xinjiang province, a remarkable series of ridges dominates the landscape.

The hills are decorated with distinctive red, green, and cream-colored sedimentary rock layers. The colors reflect rocks that formed

at different times and in different environments. The red layers near the top of the sequence are Devonian sandstones formed

by ancient rivers. The green layers are Silurian sandstones formed in a moderately deep ocean. The cream-colored layers are

Scarlet Lake Natron

Tanzania

Lake Natron is mostly inhospitable to life, but it is gorgeous to the eye. The lake in Tanzania receives less than 500 millimeters

(20 inches) of rain in most years. Evaporation usually exceeds that amount, and the lake needs input from some local rivers to

maintain a water supply in the dry season.

This Landsat 8 image from March 2017 shows Lake Natron’s chromatic charisma. Volcanism helps make the unusual color. Nearby

Tidal Flats and Channels

Bahamas

The islands of the Bahamas are situated on large depositional platforms—the Great and Little Bahama Banks—composed mainly

of carbonate sediments ringed by reefs. The islands are the only parts of the platform currently exposed above sea level. The

sediments were formed mostly from the skeletal remains of organisms settling to the sea floor; over geologic time, these sediments

consolidated to form carbonate sedimentary rocks such as limestone.

Dueling Blooms

Barents Sea

As the seasons pass on Earth, different species tend to dominate the landscape at different times. Such was the case in July 2014 in

the surface waters of the Barents Sea, north of Norway and Russia. The Aqua satellite captured a transitional moment between one

form of microscopic, plant-like organisms (phytoplankton) and another.

Several currents merge in this area, and intersecting waters combine with stiff winds to promote mixing of waters and nutrients from

Bay of Whales

Russia

The area around Russia’s Ulbanskiy Bay is mostly uninhabited by humans, but it does support sizable numbers of whales. In

summertime, this bay is a feeding ground for bowheads, belugas, and orcas that come to Ulbanskiy for the seafood buffet. They

hunt by driving fish like herring and smelt toward the coast and into freshwater inlets.

Onshore, freshwater streams meander into marshlands and gently sloped mud flats. The marshes around the bay are dotted with

Coral Cocos

Indian Ocean

Coral atolls—which are largely composed of huge colonies of tiny animals such as cnidaria—form around islands. After the islands

sink, the coral remains, generally forming complete or partial rings. The South Keeling Islands, part of the Cocos Islands in the Indian

Ocean, are such a place.

Only some parts of the South Keeling Islands still stand above the water surface. In the north, the ocean overtops the coral.

Holuhraun Lava Field

Iceland

As an island in the moist, turbulent North Atlantic, Iceland is often shrouded in clouds and difficult to observe from space. In 2014,

the island started making some of its own cloud cover, as the Earth split open between the Bárðarbunga and Askja volcanoes and

spewed lava and hot gas.

Landsat 8 captured this view of the eruption in September 2014. The false-color image combines shortwave infrared, near-infrared,

From Rainforest to Rain Shadow

United States

Within a three-hour drive across Oregon, you can visit a beach, a temperate rainforest, a mountain glacier, and the high desert.

The diversity of the landscape is mostly driven by the interaction of air masses and mountains.

This false-color Landsat 5 image from October 2011 shows the bare soil and sparse vegetation of the high desert in shades of pink,

together with the deep-green vegetation on the west side of the Cascade Mountains. The one blue spot is the glacial cap of Mount Hood.

Taranaki and Egmont

New Zealand

The circular pattern of New Zealand’s Egmont National Park stands out from space as a human fingerprint on the landscape.

The park protects the forested and snow-capped slopes around Mount Taranaki (Mount Egmont to British settlers). It was

established in 1900, when officials drew a radius of 10 kilometers around the volcanic peak. The colors differentiate the protected

forest (dark green) from once-forested pasturelands (light- and brown-green).