Earth from space: Massive field of ancient lava casts an eerie, gold-specked shadow in the Sahara

Across millions of years it appears as a haunting, gold-dotted silhouette in this impressive composite of three years' worth of satellite images.

.

At the UK's Natural History Museum in London.

Although the dark colour of the petrified lava gives the impression of a flat field from on high, it is actually very uneven, with numerous eruptions having created mountains of rock above the surrounding landscape in some areas. The site is further dotted with elevated fracture points and at least 30 conical protrusions, each standing over 330 feet (100 meters) in height, according to the Global Volcanism Programme.

The highest point of the field reaches approximately 1,200 metres (3,900 feet) above sea level.

.

This model also picks out pixels where patches of sand have collected in the gaps in the lava, creating a golden speckled effect on the landscape. These sandy areas are less noticeable in other satellite images of the same region.

Volcanic history

Areas of diverging plates have unfortunate consequences as they are precisely where the Earth's crust is most vulnerable and the separation is thinnest, allowing scorching hot rock magma from deep within the mantle to emerge and affect the environment on its own accord, wreaking havoc on the terrain.

However, the Haruj volcanic field does not sit close to any familiar fault lines. It is likely that the lava originated from the mantle, pulled up by a surge of hot, rocky matter - known as a mantle plume - which caused a magma reservoir to form beneath the field.

Instead, releases of material occur in more gradual and explosive eruptions, according to the Earth Observatory.

Some researchers consider Haruj to be two distinct volcanic regions: Al Haruj al Aswad, situated in the north, which comprises ancient lava flows; and Al Haruj al Abyad in the south, created more recently. It is challenging to determine exactly where one field ceases and the other commences, leading it to be widely regarded as a unified entity.

Share :