Basalt Cliffs #3414

3D anaglyph image of Basalt cliffs along the northwest edge of the Meseta de Somuncura plateau near Sierra Colorada, Argentina showing an unusual and striking pattern of erosion. Stereoscopic observation helps to clarify the landform changing processes active here. Many of the cliffs appear to be rock staircases that have the same color as the plateau's basaltic cap rock. Are these the edges of lower layers in the basalt or are they a train of slivers that are breaking off from, then sliding downslope and away from, the cap rock. They appear to be the latter. Close inspection shows that each stair step is too laterally irregular to be a continuous sheet of bedrock like the cap rock. Also, the steps are not flat but instead are little ridges, as one might expect from broken, tilted, and sliding slices of the cap rock. Stream erosion has cut some gullies into the cliffs and vegetation (appears bright in this infrared image) shows that water springs from and flows down some channels, but land sliding is clearly a major agent of erosion here. This anaglyph was generated by first draping a Landsat Thematic Mapper image over a topographic map from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, then producing the two differing perspectives, one for each eye. When viewed through special glasses, the result is a vertically exaggerated view of the Earth's surface in its full three dimensions. Anaglyph glasses cover the left eye with a red filter and the right eye with a blue filter.

Photo Credit: NASA/JPL/NIMA [0003-0701-0820-0050] by 0003