Images

Do you see a scary face looking back at you? The hollow-appearing eyes, narrow nose, and slash of a mouth are inundated patches of shallow Lake Eyre (pronounced "air"). Deep in the desert country of northern South Australia, Lake Eyre is an ephemeral feature of this flat, parched landscape. When seasonal rains are abundant, water fills the lakebed to some degree.

A popular holiday destination, the Lake District in northwestern England is a region of picturesque mountains and long, narrow lakes. Most of the lakes lie in U-shaped valleys that were carved by glaciers during the last ice age. Morecambe Bay, below the Lake District, opens into the Irish Sea.

Landsat 7 infrared image of wildfires near Yucca Valley, California. July 2006

Farmland near Hydetown, Pennsylvania, part of the Erie Drift Plain Ecoregion. This photo was taken during fieldwork for the USGS Land Cover Trends project. The project was focused on understanding the rates, trends, causes, and consequences of contemporary U.S.

In the style of Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night," massive congregations of greenish phytoplankton swirl in the dark water around Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea. Phytoplankton are microscopic marine plants that form the first link in nearly all ocean food chains.

Vivid colors and bizarre shapes come together in an image that could be an imaginative illustration for a fantasy story. This labyrinth of exotic features is present along the edge of Russia's Chaunskaya Bay (vivid blue half circle) in northeastern Siberia. Two major rivers, the Chaun and Palyavaam, flow into the bay, which in turn opens into the Arctic Ocean.

A landscape scene in Senegal, photographed in 1983 by U.S. Geological Survey Scientist G. Gray Tappan as part of his work on West African land cover. Tappan photographed the scene again in 1994.

A landscape scene in Senegal, photographed in 1994 by U.S. Geological Survey Scientist G. Gray Tappan as part of his work on West African land cover. Tappan previously photographed the scene in 1983.

A scene along a road in Senegal, photographed in 2004 by U.S. Geological Survey Scientist G. Gray Tappan as part of his work on West African land cover. Tappan had previously photographed the scene in 1994.

What appears to be a stroke of thick red paint is actually a remarkable interplay of light and cloud in the Canadian Rockies. Angling through them is part of the Rocky Mountain Trench, a valley that extends from Montana, USA, to just south of the Yukon Territory.

Herd of giraffes in Niger, West Africa

Dryland agriculture in the Northwestern Great Plains ecoregion.
 

Small, blocky shapes of towns, fields, and pastures surround the graceful swirls and whorls of the Mississippi River. Countless oxbow lakes and cutoffs accompany the meandering river south of Memphis, Tennessee, on the border between Arkansas and Mississippi, USA. The "mighty Mississippi" is the largest river system in North America.

Ethereal swirls of grease ice appear turquoise against the midnight blue of the northern Baltic Sea near the Aland Islands (red) between Finland and Sweden. An early stage of sea ice formation, grease ice consists of a viscous mix of tiny ice crystals and resembles an oil slick on the ocean's surface.

France's famed Provence region meets the Mediterranean as a gentle curve intricately sculpted into sheltered bays and fringing peninsulas. The ancient port of Marseilles, the country’s second largest city, nestles in the large bay at the lower left corner of the image.

The dark heart in this vivid African landscape is the Erongo Massif, an isolated, sheer-walled mountain that rises 1,200 meters (3,937 feet) above arid Namibian plains. The massif is a remnant of a gigantic volcano that was active roughly 150 million years ago. At some point, the volcano's center collapsed in upon itself under the weight of overlying lava.

Dark-colored volcanic cones sprout from an ancient lava field known as Harrat Al Birk along Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coastline. Many such lava fields dot the Arabian Peninsula and range in age from 2 million to 30 million years old.

Seen through the "eyes" of a satellite sensor, ribbons of Saharan sand dunes seem to glow in sunset colors. These patterned stripes are part of Erg Chech, a desolate sand sea in southwestern Algeria, Africa, where the prevailing winds create an endlessly shifting collage of large, linear sand dunes.

The Caicos Islands (pronounced KAY-kohss) in the northern Caribbean are a popular tourist attraction, renowned for their beautiful beaches, clear waters, scuba diving, and luxury resorts.

San Juan, Argentina, nestles in a fertile valley flanked by arid mountains. Croplands and vineyards (green) abut the metropolitan area on the San Juan River. The white "teardrop" (lower left) is an ancient lakebed called Barreal Blanco.

Like poster paints run wild, this image reveals an eclectic montage of landscapes in Iran's largest desert, the Dasht-e Kavir, or Great Salt Desert. The word kavir is Persian for salt marsh.