STS066-88-056 - ELEUTHERA ISLAND, BAHAMAS
The striking views provided by the Bahamas islands lend insights into the important problems of CaCO3 (limestone) production and transport.  This photograph includes the southern part of Eleuthera Island in the northern Bahamas.  The hook-shaped island encloses a relatively shallow platform (light blue) which is surrounded by deep water (dark blue).  The feathery pattern along the western edge of Eleuthera's platform are sand bars and sand channels created by tidal currents sweeping on and off the platform.  The channels serve to funnel large amounts of CaCO3 off the platform and into the deeper water.

STS066-89-014 - HEARD ISLAND
As the air blows over the tops of the mountain peaks, seen here in the clear region, the direction of the air flow is disturbed.  These disturbances in the flow pattern are generally small circular eddies with one circulating in a clockwise direction and the next in the reverse direction.  The wind here has caused the shallow cloud cover to change accordingly.  These eddies are commonly called Von Carmen Vortices. 

STS066-90-083 - GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA
Snow covers the Kaibab Plateau on the northern side of the Colorado River in this November, 1994 view of the Grand Canyon.  North is to the bottom of this view.  The Colorado River has created a canyon which cuts through billions of years of geologic time.  The Grand Canyon is 446 km (277 miles) long, averages 16 km (10 miles) wide, and is approximately 1.6 km (1 mile) deep.  The Coconino Plateau is located on the upper left side of the view, or to the south of the Colorado River.  The direction of flow of the Colorado River is from the east to the west.  Eventually the river turns south and empties into the Gulf of California.  The southern portion of Lake Powell in Utah can be seen at the bottom center of the view.  John Wesley Powell was the first man to lead an organized expedition through the Grand Canyon in 1869.

STS066-92-013 - GANGES RIVER DELTA, INDIA, BANGLADESH
An intertidal delta with extensive mangrove mud flats and sand dunes.  The Ganges River Delta is the largest delta in the world.  The mangrove swamp vegetation, characteristic of many tropical and subtropical coasts, is the primary producer in the ecological system of this delta.  This uniquely-adapted, salt-tolerant vegetation cushions the shoreline from wind and wave action.  The physical structure of the mangroves provides a habitat and food for aquatic and terrestrial plant and animal life.  The increasing demand for lumber and firewood has outstripped the natural regrowth of the mangroves.  Additionally, as the need for more arable land has grown, the mangroves are being removed.  Dikes are built, and the land cleared and drained, principally for rice cultivation.  Space Shuttle photography over time permits monitoring of environmental changes in the delta due to population pressures on the vital mangrove forests.  It also allows the mapping of geological changes due to shifting distributaries and delta growth.  The remaining forested area lies along the southern ridge of the delta in the Sundarbans Preserve.  This is also one of the habitats of Asian Tigers that has been threatened in recent years.

As seen in this photograph, the tributaries and distributaries of the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers deposit huge amounts of silt and clay, creating a shifting maze of waterways and islands in the Bay of Bengal.  Submarine sediments from these rivers are transported almost 1000 km beyond the southern tip of India. 

STS066-94-020 - LAKE CHAD, CHAD
This oblique view of Lake Chad was taken by the STS-66 crew in November, 1994.  This lake lies mainly in the Republic of Chad and partly in Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger.  The size of Lake Chad varies seasonally and is actually divided into north and south basins; neither of which is generally more than 25 feet (7.6 meters) deep.  In this photograph, all the water appears to be located in the southern basin with the northern and eastern edges of both basins covered with sand dunes which have invaded the area where water once stood.  The prevailing wind direction can be seen from the agriculture burning in both basins to be from the east.

STS066-98-078 - STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR
Swift currents flow through the Strait of Gibraltar, producing complicated patterns in the surface waters.  Some of those patterns are highlighted in the sunglint in this photograph.  The Mediterranean Sea is on the upper right, the Atlantic Ocean is in the lower left.  Few features can be seen on the Mediterranean side, but current shears (straight lines coming off Spain), several sets of internal waves (impinging on the Spanish continental shelf) and ships' wakes can be seen on the Atlantic side, west of Cadiz.  Both Tangier and Cadiz show up in the sunglint as well.

STS066-100-027 - SAKURA-JIMA,JAPAN
One of the world's most active volcanoes, Sakura-jima in southern-most Kyushu, Japan, erupts dozens of times a year.  Volcanic eruptions are so much a part of daily life in the city of Kagoshima (across the bay and west of Sakura-jima), that school children wear hard hats to school.

This photo provides a  nice clear view of Sakura-jima on a quiet day -- only a plume of steam rises from the summit crater.  The summit region is covered with gray ash from the frequent eruptions, and some of the rivers cutting down the mountain (especially the western drainages) appear to be filled with volcanic debris.

STS066-103-020 - DEFORESTATION IN BRAZIL
This near vertical photograph shows two distinctly different agricultural land use patterns in terms of their maturity.  The larger  rectangular field patterns represent an older and more fully developed agricultural environment, while the much smaller are less well defined field patterns represent more recent agricultural development.  This scene is fairly typical of the landscape in many parts of southwestern Brazil, near the Bolivian border. Photographs such as this one are excellent to illustrate areas where change, such as clearings, field patterns, slash and burn activities, and roads, is occurring.  They provide scientists with insight into the rate at which the tropical rainforest and their marginal transition zones are being altered, in many cases in a very dramatic way.

STS066-103-027 - CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA
This nadir photograph of the Cape Canaveral area on Florida's eastern coast was taken by the STS-66 crew in November, 1994.  The Shuttle Vehicle Assembly Area and the runway used by returning Shuttles can be seen near the center of this photo as part of the J. F. Kennedy Space Center.  Launch Pads A and B as well as many other launch pads and a runway can be seen on Cape Canaveral.  Cape Canaveral is located to the east of the Kennedy Space Center.  South of the launch area is Port Canaveral and Cocoa Beach on the Atlantic Coast with the towns of Cocoa, Merritt Island, and Titusville situated along the Intercoastal Waterway.

STS066-106-092 - DINARIC ALPS
The Adriatic coast of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia is centered at approximately 44.5 degrees North and 15.0 degrees East.  North is at the bottom of the picture.

The town of Bihac is located under the cloud layer in the center left of the frame.

The terrain is composed of limestone and the geomorphic term "karst" is named after a city in the area.  The Velebit Mountains form the rugged coast in the center of the frame.  This area was a favorite cruising area in the Adriatic Sea subsequent to the breakup of Yugoslavia.

STS066-110-041 - CAIRO, EGYPT and THE NILE RIVER
This close-up view of the intensively cultivated Nile River floodplain near Cairo presents a sharp color contrast to the virtually non-vegetated, sandy desert, located to the west of the vegetated area.  Some rectangular cultivated field patterns, as well as circular center pivot irrigation patterns, can be observed northwest of the Nile River floodplain.  The world famous Giza Pyramids are located near the center of this photography (see highly reflective sand surfaces).

STS066-113-033 - SWISS ALPS, SWITZERLAND
An oblique view looking northeast along the Alps Mountain System of south 
central Europe.  This system forms a wide, curving arc along the borders of northern Italy and adjacent regions of southeast France, Switzerland, and southern West Germany.  This view taken by the STS-66 crew in November, 1994 and shows the permanently snowcapped peaks of the Swiss and Pennine Alps.  The Rhone River Valley in Switzerland can be seen as curved inverted "L" near the center of the photograph.  To the right and below the Rhone River Valley are the Pennine Alps located in northern Italy.  The numerous contrails indicate the heavy air traffic in this region of Europe.

STS066-114-031 - GREENLAND
This north-looking view of southwestern Greenland was taken in November, 1994 and shows numerous indentations, many of which contain small settlements.  These fjords carved by glaciers of the last great ice age 10,000 years ago.  Even today, the ice in the center of Greenland is nearly 3,500 meters (11,000 feet) thick and great rivers of ice continuously flow down toward the sea, where they melt or break off as icebergs.  Some icebergs exceed the size of small islands, weigh several million tons, and rise several hundred feet above the sea surface.  During winter, the fjords freeze over and transportation is limited to dog sled and helicopter.

Cape Farewell is visible toward the bottom right of the view.  Julianehab Bay and the Bredev  fjord can be seen toward the center of the photograph.  Godthab, the main settlement on Greenland, is barely visible to the north of the Frederikeshabs Icefield near the left center of the view.

STS066-117-014 - MALASPINA GLACIER, ALASKA
Malaspina Glacier can be seen in this north-northeastern photograph taken in November, 1994.  The glacier, located in the south shore of Alaska is a classic example of a piedmont glacier lying along the foot of a mountain range.  The principal source of ice for the glacier is provided by the Seward Ice Field to the north (top portion of view) which flows through three narrow outlets onto the coastal plain.  The glacier moves in surges that rush earlier-formed moraines outward into the expanding concentric patterns along the flanks of the ice mass.

STS066-122-091 - OKAVANGO DELTA, BOTSWANA
This November, 1994 view looking south-southeast shows clouds over the Okavango Delta area of northern Botswana.  The Okavango is one of the wilder, less spoiled regions in Africa.  The area still supports great herds of wild animals such as elephant, zebra, and the cape buffalo.  Despite conservation efforts from the stable government of Botswana, delta habitats are pressured.

The Okavango River (lower left of view) brings water from the high, wet plateaus of Angola into the Kalahari Desert, and enormous inland basin.  As a result of a series of small faults (upper center of the view) related to the African Rift System, the river is dammed up in the form of swampy inland delta.  Here water is consumed by evaporation, infiltration, and the swamp forests.  Late summer floods take six months to slowly penetrate the 160 km (95 miles) to the other end of the Delta.

The visual patterns of the area are strongly linear:  straight sand dunes occur in many places and can be seen across the bottom portion of the photograph.Numerous brush-fire scars produce a complex, straight-edged pattern over much of the lower portion of the view.  Lake Ngami (upper right of the view) was once permanently full as late as the middle 1800's. Changes in the climate of the area over the last 100 years has changed the size and shape of the inland delta.

STS066-124-059 - MT. EVEREST
Mount Everest region, Nepal and China.  Low morning sun highlights Mount Everest (the highest mountain in the world, at 8848 meters), Cho Oyu (8153 meters) to the northwest, and other peaks of "The Roof of the World".  New snow seems to be confined to the highest peaks.  Abundant details of glacier surfaces, including moraines, crevasse fields, and ice falls are displayed for study.  Shuttle photographs such as this one are fortuitous in that their acquisition depends on Shuttle scheduling, lighting, and weather, but details of glacier surface at an instant probably could be obtained in no other way, given the operational, funding, and political constraints of aerial reconnaissance.

STS066-125-005 - SINAI
A high oblique view of the Middle East centered at approximately 28.0 degrees North and 34.0 degrees East.  Portions of the countries of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are visible.

The Dead Sea rift valley continuing into the Gulf of Aqaba marks the boundary between Israel, and Jordan.  The vegetation change in the Sinai Peninsula is the border between the Gaza strip and Egypt.  In Egypt the Suez Canal connects the Gulf of Suez with the Mediterranean Sea and forms the Western boundary of the Sinai Peninsula.

The green ribbon of the Nile River is in marked contrast to this arid region.  Even the Jordan River does not support large scale agriculture.  This makes water the most important resource in this region.

STS066-150-090 - HURRICANE FLORENCE
This is a picture of Hurricane Florence at it's peak, over the open waters of the North Atlantic.  This hurricane never made landfall over the United States, however after the storm became extra-tropical, it's moisture combined with a storm system over parts of Europe and caused large amounts of flooding across Spain and France.

STS06-152-022 - THE CENTRAL ANDES
This photograph captures the exotic volcanic terrain of the Altiplano of the Central Andes.  Some of the remarkable details include the west-pointing wind streaks, resulting from fine dust being transported across the Andes by the high winds; paleo (old) shorelines along the margins of the salars (or dry lake beds), recording the changes in water levels on the high Altiplano; beautiful alluvial fans emptying onto some of salars; and the hundreds of volcanic landforms which can be mapped and interpreted to help decipher the volcanic history of the region.  

STS066-154-157 - INDONESIA
This is a striking, oblique view to the south of the Indonesian islands of Java (right), Bali and Lombok (upper left).  The linear array of dark regions across the photo is a chain of volcanoes which make up the back bone of this part of the Indonesian islands.  This chain has been quite active over the past six months, with major eruptions on Lombok and Bali during the summer of 1993, and continuing eruptions from Merapi in central Java.   Plumes of steam can be seen rising from the summits of Arjuno (west-central Java) and Merapi (central Java, near the right side of this photo).  Just three weeks after this photo was taken, Merapi experienced a major eruption that sent deadly mudflows down the mountains' flanks.

The region appears clear but hazy -- both conditions due to an extended drought over Indonesia and Australia.  Because of drought conditions, huge fires continue to burn over other regions of Indonesia, New Guinea and northern Australia, producing a regional smoke pall.

STS066-158-181 - HIMALAYAS
View southeastward across China (Tibet), half of Nepal, and India.  The partly frozen lake near the center of the frame is Pei-Ku T'so ("Bow-Tie Lake").  The central Himalaya stretches from Mount Everest on the left past Annapurna on the right.  Large tributaries converge to form the Ganges River, flowing through the lowland basin south of the Himalaya.  This photograph illustrates the rain shadow effect of the Himalaya Chain: wet, warm air from the Indian Ocean is driven against the mountains, lifted, and drained of water that forms ice caps, the abundant rivers, and forests of the foothills.  In contrast the high plateau of Tibet is arid, composed largely of topographically-closed basins because streamflow is inadequate to form integrated drainage networks.