Portal:Geography/Featured picture archive/2008

The Vinland map, a 15th century world map purportedly based on a 13th century original. If authentic, it is the first known depiction of the North American coastline.

Image credit: creator unknown

Arctic Circle, Santa Claus' Village in Rovaniemi, Finland.

Image credit: Birit Schenk

Flooding in Amphoe Sena, Ayutthaya Province, Thailand.

Image credit: Alabamaboy

Water cycles between ocean, atmosphere, and glaciers.

Image credit: NASA

Surface waves of water: expansion of a disturbance.

Image credit: Roger McLassus

Oceania's regions.

Image credit: ASDFGH

The mouth of Cattaraugus Creek on Lake Erie near Sunset Bay, New York, United States. The Cattaraugus Indian Reservation occupies the land on the north side (upper in this photograph) of the creek. View is to the north. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed the breakwaters and dredges the channel as necessary.

Image credit: Ken Winters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Rainbows can often be seen in the spray and mist coming from larger waterfalls, as here at Takakkaw Falls, Canada.

Image credit: Michael Rogers

Aerial view of Levittown, Pennsylvania circa 1959, a new town constructed in a previously undeveloped area.

Image credit: National Archives and Records Administration

Tornado climatology: Intense tornado activity in the United States. The darker-colored areas denote the area commonly referred to as Tornado Alley.

Image credit: Federal Emergency Management Agency

San Francisco harbor, 1850 or 1851, with Alcatraz Island in the background.

Image credit: unknown

Sunset in Bangkok, showing the skytrain and modern skyline, taken from the corner of Thanon Silom.

Image credit: Diliff

Grand Prismatic Spring.

Image credit: National Park Service

Iguassu Falls.

Image credit: Anouchka Unel

Detroit, Michigan.

Image credit: Shawn Wilson

A simulated-color satellite image of Detroit, with Windsor across the Detroit River, taken on NASA's Landsat 7 satellite.

Image credit: NASA

Point No Point Light at Point No Point on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington State, United States

Image credit: Moxfyre

Tsing Ma Bridge in Hong Kong, China.

Image credit: 39kschan

Nile river delta.

Image credit: NASA

Approximate extent of the Mackenzie River watershed. It is the longest river in Canada.

Image credit: Geo Swan

Howard's Pass in Nahanni National Park Reserve in Yukon, Canada.

Image credit: Jo Ohara

Nevado San Francisco, or Cerro San Francisco, is a stratovolcano on the border between Argentina and Chile, located just southeast of San Francisco Pass. It is considered extinct.

Image credit: Éric Depagne

The cartographer and geographer Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598), at the age of about 50. He was the author of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.

Image credit: Public Domain

Topographic map of the island of Hawaii.

Image credit: Sémhur

Dead trees in the terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, United States.

Image credit: Thegreenj

Beach of Anse Source d'Argent on the island of La Digue, Seychelles.

Image credit: Tobias Alt

The pier of the seaside resort Prerow in Nordvorpommern, Germany. On the foreground, a Scott's pine (Pinus sylvestris)

Image credit: Simon Koopmann

Mulberry Street, New York City, New York, United States c. 1900.

Image credit: User:Debivort

Moving sand dunes in part of the Sahara, south western Libya.

Image credit: (Luca Galuzzi) * http://www.galuzzi.it

Terraced rice fields in Yunnan Province, China.

Image credit: Jialiang Gao

Description of relations between axial tilt (or obliquity), rotation axis, plane of orbit, celestial equator and ecliptic.

Image credit: user:Dna-webmaster

Beijing CBD (Commercial Business District) area.

Image credit: 39degN

Two computer models showing the amount of methane found at the Earth's surface and in the stratosphere.

Image credit: GMAO Chemical Forecasts and GEOS–CHEM NRT Simulations for ICARTT (top) and Randy Kawa, NASA GSFC Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics Branch (lower)

Lokrum isle in the Adriatic Sea, in Croatia.

Image credit: László Szalai (Beyond silence)

Alluvial fans at Andes Mountain, Los Penitentes, Mendoza, Argentina.

Image credit: Eurico Zimbres

Arctic shrinkage of ice in the Arctic Sea in February 2008.

Image credit: NASA

Profile through the Drake Passage between South America and the Antarctic Peninsula. Morphological main features in the deep sea are shown like the mid-ocean ridge (West Scotia Ridge), separating the Antarctic Plate from the South American Plate. The South Shetland Islands belong to an island belt, resulting from the subduction of the Pacific plate below the Antarctic plate. In the back arc basin, i.e. the Bransfield Strait, submarine volcanoes have been found.

The upper graph shows salinity and temperature in surface water measured along a cruise track. The Polar front is an oceanographic feature which is characterized by a steep change in temperature by some degree.

Image credit: Hannes Grobe

Topographic map of the Red Sea, UTM projection (WGS84 datum).

Image credit: Eric Gaba

Lake Assal, Djibouti. Lake Assal is the most saline body of water on Earth, with 34.8% percent salt concentration.

Image credit: Fishercd

A thunderstorm with heavy precipitation in the lower lower Adelaide River catchment in Northern Territory, Australia.

Image credit: Bidgee

Dusk.

Image credit: mailer diablo

Rockall, a small, isolated rocky islet in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Image credit: Anilocra

Two stacks on Flowerpot Island in Georgian Bay, a part of the Fathom Five National Marine Park of Ontario, Canada.

Image credit: Thesofa

Pebbles on a shingle beach in Bossington Shingle Beach, Somerset, England.

Image credit: Sean the Spook

Waymarked boardwalk trail through the sand dunes of Ynyslas in Ceredigion, Wales, United Kingdom.

Image credit: Badgernet

Landsat image of Ōsumi Peninsula, Kagoshima, Japan.

Image credit: NASA

Pocket beach at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa.

Image credit: Krun

Diagram of a fringing coral reef.

Image credit: USGS

Left to right: Vorder Grauspitz (2599 m), the highest mountain in Liechtenstein and Hinter Grauspitz (also: Schwarzhorn) (2574 m) from east.

Image credit: Svickova