Map Monday 19: Bathymetry of Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal is most famous for being the deepest and most voluminous lake in the world [assuming you don't count the Caspian Sea]. For me, the most striking feature isn't the deepest point, but rather, the average depth at 744 meter. The bathymetry, instead sloping to the lowest point, it has steep sides and a flat bottom. Image a fjord, although it isn't glacial in origin, rather tectonic. This oblique DEM gives another perspective.

Map Information
The INTAS Project 99-1669 Team. 2002. A new bathymetric map of Lake Baikal. Open-File Report on CD-Rom

Riviére de Terre

Riviére de Terre by Andy Goldsworthy; photo by Emmanuel Prunevieille.

This month's Accretionary Wedge is geo-images. Although, I do like maps, I went with something different.

I first learned of the land artist Andy Goldsworthy through the documentary Rivers and Tides. As the name "land artist" implies, various "natural" materials, such as rocks, twigs, leaves, soil are used in the creation and placement of the art. Many of the features are temporary, being "destroyed" by the nature around it.

The work is made of a variety of local clays, forming the work as the clays dried.

Map Monday 18: 1911 Mount St Helens

With the 30th anniversary of the 1980 eruption coming up tomorrow, why not a pre-eruption map? The below is the 1919 Mt St Helens quadrangle. Be sure to click on the image for a zoomable version of the map.



Map Information
U.S. Geological Survey. 1919. Mount St Helens quadrangle, Washington 1:125,000. United States Department of the Interior, USGS. Hosted by University of Washington.

Map Monday 17: North Side of the Moon

Map Information
Lucchitta, B. 1978. Geologic map of the north side of the Moon. US Geological Survey. Online at the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

Map Monday 16: Vine and Matthews Magnetic Anomalies

The defining paradigm shift in 20th century earth science is clearly the widespread acceptance of plate tectonics. One of the most important lines of evidence helping to convince scientists were the existence of magnetic stripe anomalies in the rocks of the oceans. The above map, from the classic Vines & Matthews paper from 1964, shows two profiles [Atlantic and Indian Oceans]. The black is the bathymetry and the black line is the magnetic field anomaly

Map Information
Figure 1 from: Vine, F.J. and D.H. Matthews. 1964. Magnetic anomalies over oceanic ridges. Nature 201:591-592.