Earth Matters

June Puzzler

June 23rd, 2014 by Mike Carlowicz

EO-June-Puzzler

Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The June 2014 puzzler is above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us what part of the world we are looking at, when the image was acquired, what the image shows, 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 about the geological, meteorological, or human processes that have played a role in molding the landscape. 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  day 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.

38 Responses to “June Puzzler”

  1. camera tricks says:

    It may be a terrible clich, but if a picture paints a thousand words, pack photography can shift stock. Minor adjustments were made but this method of post conversion does not create any problems during the shoot.. Each photograph almost has their personal stamp on it. Cameras photography communities use are so varied that anybody can use them.

  2. peggy says:

    snow cover formed by winds somewhere in mountains
    or salt deposit somewhere in a desert
    aquired during sunny morning

  3. P. Tucker says:

    I think this picture represents a southern section of the Colorado river before water was recently reintroduced. The picture appears to be of a sandy river bed on the left with a dried up basin on the right.

  4. ann mullen says:

    to me it seems like part of a glazier, is it the Chilean Patagonia or Sanquiantan glazier.

  5. Tony Whitehead says:

    I think it is both very dry and very cold (rather like Mars). I’ll take a risk and suggest this view is part of the dry valeys of the Antarctic continent.

  6. Frank schehr says:

    Death valley

  7. Helena Magnusson says:

    Dried parts of the Dead Sea in Israel.

  8. Ellen B says:

    Bisti Badlands, NW NM. Taken at noon.

  9. Myrna pace says:

    This is the only place in South Pole ,with ALPS and it is melting @ SAN QUENTIN, CHILE.

  10. Stephanie says:

    I am thinking either a glacier coming out of the Andes around the Atacama Desert area or a salt bed in the Gobi Desert. It seems to me that if it was the Sahara, there would be dunes and more physical features. With the way the waves of the picture are facing the same way, it reminds me of the shore of a long-ago evaporated saltwater lake and the waves are the impressions made by the movement of the water against the shoreline. But this is just a guess. I have never tried to identify such pictures before, so I am probably totally off the mark, lol.

  11. Tiana says:

    Arizona, around TOp Rock Spring.

  12. Neale says:

    Lake eyre, Australia

  13. Ashish Patankar says:

    Its looking like a desert. Australia or sahara

  14. Erwin says:

    Glazier at Chile

  15. Sisco says:

    San Francisco Bay

  16. abraham says:

    salares de Chile

  17. Janelle says:

    Western China mineral deposits

  18. Chris Schaefer says:

    It is the eastern edge of the Bonneville Salt Flats.

  19. Fernando says:

    salt deposits left by retreating water in a lake. Probbaly in Asia: Chimboy lake, Aral sea or similar

  20. Rajesh says:

    Potash Mine

  21. Charles says:

    White Sands Missler range.

  22. K Hedges says:

    Zion National Park. We’re looking down two steep cliffs with a river and trees between. On the right are two “rabbit ears” sticking up.

  23. Danielle Nichole Forester says:

    Bonneville Salt Flats-Utah

  24. a.schierz says:

    Could be a dried part of the Aral Sea in Central Asia

  25. Richard s says:

    Mojave Desert? It has the characteristics I surmise from my Earthbound view. Looks a mite bigger though.

  26. Jeffrey Moore says:

    Great Salt Lake

  27. Sajin Sebastian says:

    This seems like a dessert or may be its the Grand Canyon reef.

  28. J . Mullins says:

    It looks like the Grand Canyon in winter .

  29. Jean-Emmanuel says:

    I’m pretty sure that’s the Great Salt flats in Utah , it can’t be snow because in the right part of the picture we can see trace of flow. On the left part we can see repeated line patterns because of strong winds.
    And it would be on dry season, because , in winter there’s some water on the salt, so maybe we could see some blue spot on the ground.

  30. Sandy Birkhollz says:

    I think it’s in Marble Canyon, Az., specifically in the area known as “the Wave”.

  31. Warick says:

    I think it’s Jupiter

  32. Lord Farinhas says:

    ¿Desierto de Atacama?

  33. lw says:

    whitesands or new mexico

  34. lw says:

    New Mexico

  35. lw says:

    New Mexico USA

  36. Apollo says:

    I think it’s a picture of Bonneville Salt Flats :0)

  37. Jarrett says:

    Boring