It is one of the great tectonic features of Africa—caused by fracturing of the Earth’s crust—and includes the classical geologic structures associated with a rift valley.
Published Apr 2, 2012
The striking patterns in northeastern Canada’s flood basalts tell a story of continental collisions that played out almost two billion years ago.
Published Feb 27, 2020
The Bingham Canyon Mine is one of the largest open-pit mines in the world, measuring over 4 kilometers wide and 1,200 meters deep. Mining first began in Bingham Canyon in the late nineteenth century, when shafts were sunk to remove gold, silver, and lead deposits that played out by the early 1900s. It would take the advent of open-pit mining in 1899 to turn the Bingham copper deposit into an economically favorable resource.
Published Oct 22, 2007
Taken January 13, 2010, this astronaut photograph shows two artificial archipelagos along the Dubai coast: Palm Jumeirah and The World. The image also shows the 800-meter-tall Bhurj Khalifa high rise building.
Published Feb 1, 2010
Astronauts had a rare chance to view a rocky landscape that is often shrouded in clouds.
Published Apr 23, 2018
One hundred million years of rock formation are visible in exposed layers at Waterpocket Fold in Capital Reef National Park. This astronaut photo from June 14, 2009, shows the layered, multi-colored rock formations.
Published Jul 6, 2009
While the Great Lakes region of North America is well known for its importance to shipping between the United States, Canada, and the Atlantic Ocean, it is also the location of an impressive structure in the continent’s bedrock: the Michigan Basin. Formed during the Paleozoic Era (approximately 540–250 million years ago) the Basin looks much like a large bullseye defined by the arrangement of exposed rock layers that all tilt inwards, forming a huge bowl-shaped structure. The outer layers of the Basin include thick deposits of carbonates—rocks containing carbon and oxygen, such as limestone—deposited over millions of years when a shallow sea covered the region. These carbonate rocks are mined throughout the Great Lakes region using large open-pit mines. The largest carbonate mine in the world, Calcite Quarry, appears in this astronaut photograph.
Published Aug 7, 2006
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