STS102-349-35 Click the photo number to access all resolutions available and the database record.
The crew of Space Shuttle 102 used the reflection of the sun off water that lies in the swales between ridges to emphasize the variable topography of the beach ridge plain. Similar topography -- although formed in a different manner, combining river and marine deposition -- can be seen on the Po and Ebro river deltas of Italy and Spain, respectively, and on the Mississippi river coast of Louisiana.
St. Vincent Island, which lies between Cape San Blas and the town of Apalachicola on the Florida Panhandle, is a national wildlife refuge and an important breeding ground for loggerhead turtles. Sambar deer, a variety of Asian elk that can weigh as much as 700 pounds, roam the marshlands, and eastern gray wolves have been bred there. The deer were introduced in the early 1900s, when the island was a privately owned hunting ground for exotic game.
