"What Was That?" -- Features Without Easy Categories

Features Without Easy Categories

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How to Use This Tool: Say you just flew over some very strange feature, and now you want to know what it is. Scroll down through some of the possibilities below. If you find what you're looking for, you can open it in Google Earth by clicking the Google Earth icon:

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Impact Craters - These giant round holes in the ground form when a rock from space flies through the atmosphere and hits Earth. They are very rare, and craters pristine enough to be seen from a plane are even more rare -- unless you're flying over Arizona, you're probably not seeing one. {read more}

Scale: Image taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so is ~1 mile across.

Open example in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.

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Salt Domes - A dome pushed up from below as subsurface salt rises through overlying layers. These are rare in the U.S., but are sometimes seen in the southwest (e.g., Texas) {read more}

Scale: Images are taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so are each ~1 mile across.

Open these examples in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.

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Nuclear Test Site - Fields of small, circular pits, usually in Nevada. It's unlikely you'll fly over this. {read more}

Scale: Image is taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so is ~3 miles across.

Open example in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.

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Dune Buggy Tracks - You'll probably only see these if you're flying flow over a desert/dune/coastal area that's managed by the Bureau of Land Management (which doesn't mind dune buggies). They're small - this field is only ~2,000 feet across. {read more}

Scale: Image taken from an altitude of ~3,000 feet, and so is ~2,000 feet across.

Open example in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.