Finally I got one! Ole's WOGE 487 took us pretty close to the middle of nowhere in the Karkaraly and Kent mountains in Kazakhstan. I thought about where in the world one might find an isolated mountain range in the middle of a grassland. The shape of the farms focused my attention away from North America and South America, and once I got to Kazakhstan, the feature stood out quite prominently.
This is the first WOGE puzzle that I'm posting, and I apologize for the delay as it appears that being in North America puts me out of sync with a lot of the active WOGE players in Europe!
There will be no Schott rule invoked, all are welcome to guess right away.
Please post the lat/long coordinates along with an explanation of the major geological feature in the image.
Happy hunting,
-G
A good start Gord, I had an idea abouut where it had to be but not what it was!
ReplyDelete10°44′40.1″N 75°14′29.05″W
El Totumo, a mud volcano in northern Colombia. The mound is about 15m high with a crater filled with warm heavy mud on the top, which of course is claimed to have therapeutic effects.
So how did I find it? The coastline looked very much like the leading edge of a wave-dominated delta. The waves are visible, and they are coming from the north - which is not common at all! So the waves must be refracted by the seafloor in a very large bay, those are "ocean-size" waves but this is a sheltered place.
An exposed west coast wouldn't have a lagoon like that, and the waves would be refracted so they crash head on into the beach, regardless of prevailing wind direction.
So that limits the location to a west-facing part of a north-facing coast in a very large bay or golf, and in a hot but not very humid climate. There also has to be a sizeable river mouth, too large for most islands. Which leaves exactly two places - Yucatan and the Gulf coast of South America. A bit down the coast from Rio Magdalena I found the spot.
That's right Ole! Well done. This mud volcano is believed to be related to a leaky transcurrent fault bringing hot water up through the marine sedimentary column. The water mixes with the soluble Neogene claystones and mudstones in the subsurface to create the viscous mud, and the overpressure from the regional tectonism and hot water drives the mud above the surface to create the feature you see today.
ReplyDeleteWoGE #489 is up at http://overburdenblog.blogspot.no/2015/05/where-on-google-earth-489.html
ReplyDelete