Where on (Google) Earth #140?
posted in Geology, Google Earth, Where on (Google) Earth? |Hi, I’m Ron Schott. You might remember me from such blogs as Ron Schott’s Geology Home Companion and comments throughout the geoblogosphere (see blogroll in the right sidebar)…
Okay, so much for the Troy McClure intro. It’s been a while since I posted despite lots of attention that’s been pointed this way since my last contribution. Leading FHSU’s Geology Summer Field Camp (yes, I have a semblance of a life off the web) was responsible for a chunk of that downtime, but inertia seems to have taken over from there.
But as always, the Where on (Google) Earth series has a habit of awaking me from my blogging slumber. Since I was able to pinpoint Péter’s cratered WoGE #139 it again falls to me to try to stump the assembled geoblogosphere with an obscure view of Earth’s uppermost crust. The view below was spotted by a satellite and, despite any passing resemblance, is not the petrographic miscroscope view of some mega-amphibole.
Identify its location (latitude and longitude will suffice) and enlighten the less geologically savvy on how such a landform originates (as best you can) and you too may have the honor of adding your name to the recently updated winners list (now with subfolders!). Of course, the winner gets an easy blog post (and all the fame and attention that goes with that) out of the deal, as well. 
Because I have a strong suspicion that this locality won’t provide much challenge to veteran WoGErs, I will invoke the Schott Rule [post time: 13:00 CDT]. This only affects previous winners.
23°10′S, 67°55′W, Chile, just east of the Toconao oasis. Further to the east is a cordillera of the Andes with some volcanos. This region is in the Atacama desert, so rains are rare but mostly rather intense, cutting the deep gullys into the rock.
At other places in the area, some alluvial fan typical braided river patterns can be seen. In the image however, the drainage seems to be influenced by a lot of parallel, SE-NW trending features (Perhaps from erosion by wind from constant direction?) which the channels follow for a while, then break through to the west, follow the next SE-NW line and so on. The bigger channels are less influenced by this and flow more directly westward into the valley.
I also first thought of joints, but if you look a bit to the north or south, these parallel features disappear. I wasn’t so comfortable then with a set of closely spaced, almost perfectly parallel joints in one place and nothing just a bit away. Just a gut feeling, however.
Also, desert always screams “wind” to me.
(Although my first-hand experiences with desert is limited to the Sahara sand we received every now and then in South Germany.)
In the meantime, I’m preparing a possibly heinous WoGE
, which I’ll announce here shortly.
[...] Schott’s WoGE had a nice drainage pattern in the Atacama Desert. But now for something completely [...]
WoGE 141 is up at my site. Have fun!
[...] Schotts letztes WoGE war ein interessantes Abflußmuster in der Atacama-Wüste. Aber nun zu etwas völlig [...]