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  Image: Geographic Location Direction Photo #: ISS011-E-9756 Date: Jun. 2005
Geographic Region: NAMIBIA
Feature: DUNES, STRANDPLAIN, BREAKERS

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  Dune Patterns, Namib Desert, Namibia

This detailed view of the remote Conception Bay sector of the Namibian coastline shows breakers and a strand plain on the left and complex dunes of the Namib dune sea on the right. A strand plain is a series of dunes, usually associated with and parallel to a beach, sometimes containing small creeks or lakes. The complexity and regularity of dune patterns in the dune sea of the Namib Desert have attracted the attention of geologists for decades; however, they remain poorly understood. The flat strand plain (~4 kilometers shown here) shows a series of wet zones that appear black where seawater seeps inland and evaporates. These patches are aligned with the persistent southerly winds, some of the strongest of any coastal desert.

The southerlies blow sand from the beaches--where it is constantly mobilized by wave action--and pile it up as dunes many tens of feet high. Note how the crests of the dunes, catching the morning light in this view, are aligned in a marked northwest-southeast orientation. These crests form transverse to the formative wind (i.e. crosswise), revealing an interesting feedback with the wind. The dunes act as obstacles, and obstacles cause winds to be deflected significantly to the right, in the southern hemisphere--in effect reorienting the southerly wind as a southwesterly wind. The higher the sand dunes grow, the more this effect comes into play.

 
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Images: All Available Images Low-Resolution 270k
Mission: ISS011  
Roll - Frame: E - 9756
Geographical Name: NAMIBIA  
Features: DUNES, STRANDPLAIN, BREAKERS  
Center Lat x Lon: 24.7S x 14.8E
Film Exposure:   N=Normal exposure, U=Under exposed, O=Over exposed, F=out of Focus
Percentage of Cloud Cover-CLDP: 0
 
Camera: E4
 
Camera Tilt: 38   LO=Low Oblique, HO=High Oblique, NV=Near Vertical
Camera Focal Length: 800  
 
Nadir to Photo Center Direction: N   The direction from the nadir to the center point, N=North, S=South, E=East, W=West
Stereo?:   Y=Yes there is an adjacent picture of the same area, N=No there isn't
Orbit Number: 1743  
 
Date: 20050628   YYYYMMDD
Time: 074224   GMT HHMMSS
Nadir Lat: 27.1S  
Latitude of suborbital point of spacecraft
Nadir Lon: 15.5E  
Longitude of suborbital point of spacecraft
Sun Azimuth: 48   Clockwise angle in degrees from north to the sun measured at the nadir point
Space Craft Altitude: 191   nautical miles
Sun Elevation: 20   Angle in degrees between the horizon and the sun, measured at the nadir point
Land Views: DESERT, DUNE, PLAIN  
Water Views: BAY, SEA, WAVE  
Atmosphere Views:  
Man Made Views:  
City Views:  
Photo is not associated with any sequences


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