Rocks, Alluvial Fans And Depressions, Altay Mountains, Mongolia
25 August 2008

Note: The area of coverage in this SPOT-5 image is approximately 40 km x 40 km.
The reduced resolution image on display has undergone compression and so does not represent the true resolution of the original satellite image.

A central valley with an almost dry lake in the middle runs between two east-west trending hill ranges. Bare rocks are visible on the dissected northern range and in other areas where they have not been covered by the alluvial fans that have been deposited by a myriad of dry braided streams. The fans expand from both the hill ranges towards the centre of the image. It is a bare, dry, desolate, unreal landscape, except in the small central depression where groundwater supports thin lines of stunted vegetation. Patches of green vegetation alternate with those of wet brown sand and glistening white salt flats. This is an area where precipitation arrives episodically, and in localized fashion, as indicated by the overlapping pattern of alluvial fans and braided channels of different hierarchy.