Every month we offer a puzzling satellite image here on Earth Matters. The March 2014 puzzler is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what the image shows, what part of the world we are looking at, when the image was acquired, and why the scene is interesting.
How to answer. Your answer can be a few words or several paragraphs. (Try to keep it shorter than 200 words). You might simply tell us what part of the world an image shows. Or you can dig deeper and explain what satellite and instrument produced the image, what spectral bands were used to create it, or what is compelling about some obscure speck in the far corner of an image. If you think something is interesting or noteworthy, tell us about it.
The prize. We can’t offer prize money, but, we can promise you credit and glory (well, maybe just credit). Roughly one week after a puzzler image appears on this blog, we will post an annotated and captioned version as our Image of the Day. In the credits, we’ll acknowledge the person who was first to correctly ID the image. We’ll also recognize people who offer the most interesting tidbits of information. Please include your preferred name or alias with your comment. If you work for or attend an institution that you want us to recognize, please mention that as well.
Recent winners. If you’ve won the puzzler in the last few months or work in geospatial imaging, please sit on your hands for at least a few days to give others a chance to play.
Releasing Comments. Savvy readers have solved many of our puzzlers after only a few minutes or hours. To give more people a chance to play, we may wait between 24-48 hours before posting the answers we receive in the comment thread.
Somewhere arid. Salt ponds on the coast. Mud volcanism just offshore?
Fish farming ?
In the Phillipines, another victim of Indian ocean rising, what we see is a disapered island.
Reply to myself, in North Atlantic, the ice beeing thawed, we see a new island and fresh cultures…i<m not contagious.
Pakistan, Salt pans, because of an earthquake in 2013 created a new island.
Yellow River delta, isn’t it?
Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf
It’s a puzzle so I will not research too much & rather go with my first impression!
I feel it is an area that lies next to a large shallow salt water deposit. The greenish farm-like sub-divisions are for harvesting salt, after the areas have been flooded & the water removed by evaporation.
basically this interesting image of a phemenon is just come into being due to tem. variation on the continental and oceanic area
Table Mountain and Cape Town in South Africa?!
The island is not a product of volcanism it’s formed as part of a river delta I’m working on the location and the ponds are for either shrimp or fish farming by the looks of them
Delta del tigre, Uruguay.
Plat Map of Rock Quarry
Nile delta, Egypt.
Dedicate to Jersey City Public Schools
A record-breaking bloom of algae in Lake Erie in October, 2011 is seen in this Landsat-5 satellite image. The green scum is mostly Microcystis, which produces a liver toxin and can cause skin irritation
You snagged my answer! Good luck, and I hope you’re right!
River delta, fish or shrimp farms, South America Atlantic coast, warm weather zone
Southern coast of China is my guess.
With fish farms.
Is this one of the atolls just off the coast of Madagascar in the Madagascar Channel? It doesn’t seem to have the correct shape but is very similar to Bassas da India or Ile Europa in that general area.
I think this is a series of fish farms in South Africa, probably during the summer time. It is interesting because the vast fish farms are hugely important to the local economy but have an equally large impact on the environment.
sea river and city
Is the river Madeira fronter from Acre?
Realytyn very desaster!
Tsunami in the Amazon!
“tsunami” in the region Amazonia, est, fronteier from Acre, analogie perfect!!
We are looking at the mud island off the coast of Pakistan.
Houston Ship Channel. Oil spill.
Prince William Sound in 1989. Exxon Valdez spill. Happy anniversary…?
Tulum, Mexico
The island that has arisen after an earthquake near the coast of Pakistan within the last year.
Nile River delta Alexandria
Colima Mexico salt pans.
I think it’s a river Delta……maybe the gulf coast in the states or the amazon???
Flooding in Somerset uk
…..or an old phosphorus mine or a quarry of some kind….
England flood!
Dark area, bottom – middle = isn’t that a profile of Alfred Hitchcock? – Real answer = its probably California lakes 2014, drying up somewhere (USA, west coast)
Coastal flooding in New Zealand photographed from the IIS.
Correction: “ISS”
Polders being built in the Netherlands!
Black Sea
San francisco bay south of oakland.
The island is Hainan in the south of China.
The line was put to show that Hainan is on the other side of China and vitnam.
Sorry. It is Sri Lanka.
Its a jelly fish.
Shoreline of Glacier National Park
The small cavity at the corner of the image is other island near of Hong Kong.
Sorry .This image show the country of Sri Lanka.
I want to say a salt farm on the coast somewhere in Asia…
Vietnam
it is the dams in the Netherlands which are built to prevent flooding
Guerrero Negro, Baja California
It looks like a Mediterranean lagoon. I can’t be more precise unfortunately..
shrimp farms myanmar,Asia
Coast of Denmark
The South Pole. The figure is a spherical view of the South pole projected onto a 2-D plane. The bright and clearly distinguishable boundaries (cells) are a characteristic function of the satellite resolution.
looks like a form of- Allege- most likely in the south American region of earth.