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Browse All : Images of Persian Gulf
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Description
STS104-723-014 (21 July 2001) --- Backdropped over a wide scene of topography in the Middle East, the International Space Station (ISS) passes over the Persian Gulf. The photograph was taken with a 70mm handheld camera during a fly-around inspection by the Space Shuttle Atlantis not long after the two spacecraft separated. Prominent on the starboard side of the outpost is the newly-installed Quest airlock.
Description
ISS012-E-18779 (28 Feb. 2006) --- Winter in the Dasht-e-Lut Desert, eastern Iran is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 12 crew member on the International Space Station. The image takes advantage of the low angle of illumination to reveal linear geological structures of the Iranian mountain range bordering the western edge of the basin known as Dasht-e-Lut. The range rises 1818 meters (6000 feet) above sea level and lies 750 kilometers (466 miles) north of the Persian Gulf. The convoluted appearance results from erosion of folded and faulted rocks ? softer rocks erode away quickly, leaving more resistant rock to form linear ridges perpendicular to the direction of compression. While not a major oil producing region like the Zagros Fold Belt to the southwest, the mountains of east-central Iran contain economically important deposits of copper and other metals. Little vegetation is visible from space in the arid interior basin of the Dasht-e-Lut. Iran is climatically part of the Afro-Asian belt of deserts that stretch from the Cape Verde islands off West Africa all the way to Mongolia near Beijing. The patchy, elongated, light-colored feature in the foreground (parallel to the mountain range) is the northernmost of the Dasht dry lakes that stretch southward 300 kilometers (186 miles). High country is the source of precipitation-derived water in all near-tropical deserts. Agricultural fields (small dark patches in the image) that depend on this precipitation are located down slope near the margin of the dry, salty soils of the lake.
Description
ISS012-E-18774 (28 Feb. 2006) --- Salt Dome in the Zagros Mountains, Iran is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 12 crew member on the International Space Station. The Zagros Mountains in southwestern Iran present an impressive landscape of long linear ridges and valleys extending hundreds of kilometers, formed by collision of the Asian and Arabian tectonic plates. According to scientists, stresses induced in the Earth?s crust by the collision caused extensive folding of the preexisting layered sedimentary rocks, with subsequent differential erosion removing softer rocks (such as siltstone and mudstone) while leaving harder rocks (such as limestone and dolomite) to form the linear ridges of the mountains. The depositional environment and tectonic history of the rocks was conducive to the formation and trapping of petroleum, and the Zagros region is an important part of Persian Gulf production. This image of the southwestern edge of the Zagros mountain belt includes another common feature of the region ? a salt dome (?Kuh-e-Namak? or ?mountain of salt? in Farsi). Thick layers of minerals such as halite (common table salt) typically accumulate in closed basins during alternating wet and dry climatic conditions. Over geologic time, the scientists say, these layers of salt are buried under overburden of younger layers of rock. The overburden pressure causes the lower-density salt to flow upwards, bending the overlaying rock layers and creating a dome-like structure. Erosion has spectacularly revealed the uplifted tan and brown rock layers surrounding the white Kuh-e-Namak to the northwest and southeast (center of image). Radial drainage patterns indicate another salt dome is located to the southwest (image left center). If the rising plug of salt (called a salt diapir) breaches the surface, it can become a flowing salt glacier. Salt domes are an important target for oil exploration, as the impermeable salt frequently traps petroleum beneath other rock layers.
Description
ISS010-E-22273 (1 April 2005) --- Palm Island Resort, Dubai, United Arab Emirates is featured in this image photographed by an Expedition 10 crewmember on the International Space Station. Palm Island is a resort under construction on reclaimed land silhouetted against the dark waters of Dubai?s Persian Gulf coast. Advertised as "being visible from the Moon," this man-made palm-shaped structure displays 17 huge fronds framed by a 12-kilometer protective barrier. When completed, the resort will sport 2000 villas, 40 luxury hotels, shopping centers, cinemas, and other facilities. An earlier handheld image from 2003 shows the outline of the palm nearing completion (see http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/crew-6/html/iss006e35516.html). Two years later, the palm appears in all its glory to passing space travelers. It has so far required over 50 million cubic meters of sand to raise it above the sea surface. Palm Island is the last of three major developments designed to transform the Dubai coastline into a major coastal metropolitan area and destination. When completed, the resort is expected to support a population of approximately 500,000 people.
Description
ISS008-E-18935 (24 March 2004) --- This photo of a large black smoke plume from an oil fire was taken by an Expedition 8 crewmember on the International Space Station as the Station orbited northeastward across Saudi Arabia. According to a front-page story in the New York Times, an oil pipeline near the channel of Shatt al Arab in southeastern Iraq on the Persian Gulf ruptured the day before. The resulting oil spill ignited and its smoke can here be seen to extend over 100 miles northwestward into southern Iraq.
Description
ISS008-E-18938 (24 March 2004) --- This photo of a large black smoke plume over southeastern Iraq was taken by an Expedition 8 crewmember on the International Space Station. The oil that is burning spilled from a ruptured pipeline on March 23, 2004. This photo was taken the next afternoon and shows details of land use near the fire. The delta of the Shatt al Arab has numerous channels, estuaries, and tidal flats. Near the top of the photo (southwest) are two large white salt evaporator operations while to the lower right are wetlands and irrigated agricultural fields. Iraq?s only oil terminal on the Persian Gulf is near the left edge of the plume.
Description
ISS008-E-16355 (15 February 2004) --- A massive sandstorm over the Persian Gulf state of Qatar blows southward toward southeastern Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in this image photographed by an Expedition 8 crewmember onboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Description
ISS008-E-12570 (22 January 2004) --- Backdropped by Earth?s horizon and the blackness of space, an unpiloted Progress supply vehicle docked to the International Space Station (ISS) was photographed by one of the Expedition 8 crewmembers. Parts of Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf are also visible.
Author
Anville, Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d, 1697-1782
Note
Engraved map. Shows rhumb lines, banks, etc. Relief shown pictorially. "La lecture d'un Memoire du Volume XXX, de l'Academie des Belles-Lettres, p. 132-197, peut faire connoitre les recherches employees par l'Auteur, dans la composition de cette carte."
Author
[Raynal, G.T., Bonne, R.]
Note
Uncolored map. Relief shown pictorially. Prime meridians are Ferro and Paris.
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