Earth Geography Thread

[castalia]

Let's share interesting locations on Earth.



This is Crater Lake in Oregon. This was once a volcano that erupted forming a caldera lake within the collapsed remains.

Here is an aerial view.

[castalia]

Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat located in Bolivia.



Here is an image from space.

[castalia]

Penitentes are thin blades or spires of snow and ice that form in high altitudes.

This is an entire field full of them.

[castalia]

The Burren is a karst land formation in Ireland.

This landscape is mostly slabs of limestone.

[castalia]

La Garita Caldera is a volcanic caldera near the town of Creede, Colorado.



The remains of this volcanic eruption were formed during the Cenozoic Era and is one of the largest in Earth's history.

[castalia]

Pingualuit Crater is an impact crater located on the Ungava Peninsula in Quebec, Canada.

The crater was formed by a meteorite impact from about 1.4 million years ago.

Within the crater is a lake that hold some of the purest fresh water in the world without any inlets or outlets. Water accumulates from only rain and snow.

[castalia]

Sima Humboldt is a sinkhole located on the summit of the Cerro Sarisari?ama tepui in Venezuela.





I wish there were more pictures of this.

[jimin]

I don't know any interesting places to post myself but just wanted to say thanks for this thread. I'm enjoying these photos.

[castalia]

Sistema Dos Ojos is a flooded cave system located in Quintana Roo, Mexico.

At this time it has been surveyed to be 51 miles with 28 known sinkholes entrances but the investigation continues.

[Kitlero]

I like this, gives me more places to want to see when I travel.

Saaremaa, Estonia



Craters formed from meteors hitting the earth. Goes along with their giant folklore and fairies somehow, but I don't remember exactly.

[castalia]

Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes

Located in Katmai National Parknad Preserve in Alaska it is a valley filled with the ash flow from the eruption of Novarupta (volcano).









The eruption of Novarupta is one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century releasing 30 times the volume of magma of Mount St. Helens.

Here is a picture of Novarupta's lava dome.

[castalia]

Białowieża Forest located between the borders of Hrodna and Brest Voblasts, Belarus and Podlaskie Voivodeship, Poland.

This forest is one of the last and largest remaining parts of an immense primeval forest that once stretched across the European Plain.









The forest is home to 800 European Bison. Apparently this Bison is one of Europe's heaviest land animals. Here's a few pictures.

[castalia]

Lake Untersee is a surface freshwater lake hidden in the interior of the Gruber Mountains of central Queen Maud Land in East Antartica.

The lake is 4 miles long and 1.6 miles wide with a maximum depth of 554 feet and is permanently covered with ice and partially bounded by glacier ice.

It has a pH between 9.8 and 12.1. In the past the water chemistry has been compared to Clorox.

[castalia]

Fisher Towers are located in Moab, Utah.

The towers are composed of Cutler sandstone capped with Moenkopi sandstone and caked with a stucco of red mud.

[castalia]

The Bingham Canyon Mine is the largest man-made excavation in the world.

This open-pit mine was opened in 1906 and still operates to this day although the current mine plan is set to expire in 2019.



The mine extracts copper, gold, silver, and molybdenum.



Here is an image of the mine in 1907.



Environmentally there have been several chemical spills between 2000-2014 among other problems - but that isn't what we're here for. To say the least there seems to be a big groundwater problem due to mining activities.