ISS002 Earth Sciences Results Briefing
February 14, 2002

OTHER RESEARCH SITES
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ISS002-728A-40
Aerosols: Saharan dust over western tropical Atlantic Ocean on June 16, 2001, approx. 12N 38W.
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ISS002-717-45
Aerosols: Saharan dust crosses the Atlas Mountains in Algeria (top) and penetrates the Guadalquivir River valley in southern Spain on June 19, 2001.
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ISS002-707-81
Aral Sea: Aral Sea, Central Asia. Waters of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya (rivers) are almost completely diverted for agricultural irrigation - little reaches the inland Aral Sea. By 1990 the surface area of the Sea had decreased by about half and the salinity had tripled since 1960. Our lengthy time series of photos from orbit permits monitoring and quantification of changes in this disappearing body of water.
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ISS002-E-9147
Aral Sea: Aral Sea, dust storm on dry seafloor. Toxic compounds ranging from agricultural chemicals to metallic and biologic wastes were once beneath the Sea; now, however, the seabed is largely dry and dust storms whip the toxins into the air and carry them out over adjacent farmland.
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ISS002-701-17
Mountain Building: Southern Zagros Mts., southern Iran. The broad, open folds of the Southern Zagros are characteristic of folded mountains with rock salt, gypsum or similar materials at their cores. Such salts behave plastically when mountain-building forces are applied. This detailed photo shows several breached folds, from which the salt cores have been eroded away. In the narrow up-arched fold (anticline) at the right, individual rock layers can be seen to dip away from the center of the structure and to be pervasively fractured.
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ISS002-749-53
Mountain Building: Pyrenees, northeastern Spain/southern France. The Pyrenees (highest point 3404 m), extend from the Bay of Biscay (west) to the Gulf of Lyon (east). The range began forming about 320 million years ago and was strongly uplifted again during early stages of Eurasian-African plate collision. This fine photo reveals details of folded and faulted strata of the southern Pyrenees. Tin, tungsten, talc, fluorite, barium and gold have been mined from the mountains, and petroleum is produced from the adjacent Aquitaine sedimentary basin in France.
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ISS002-E-8334
Mountain Building: Wind River Range, Wyoming. The broad, SE-trending Wind River Mts. are part of the great Rocky Mountain chain that stretches from northwestern Canada into northern Mexico. That whole mountain system was created in response to the long-lasting collision of the eastern Pacific and North American tectonic plates. In this fine view, rock layers on the NE flank of the range can be seen to dip away from the ridgecrest. Numerous parallel joints and fractures control the locations of valleys and stream courses along both flanks of the uplift.
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