As the winner of WoGE #243 over at Ron Schott's blog, I am here to present Where on Google Earth, for the first time on Geology at About.com. In this long-running game, you stare at a frame copied from Google Earth, figure out where it is, and try to be the first to post its name and location here in the comments, also saying something about the geology the image displays. If you win, you host the next round on your own website or blog (or cajole someone else into doing it). Click on the picture, or here, to see the full 1024 x 900 image.
Because this can be highly competitive (especially during American lunch hours), I could invoke the Schott Rule, which stipulates that previous winners must wait one hour for each time they've won before. But this time the rule will NOT be invoked. In fact, I'll add a hint: This site is on the boundary of one of Earth's youngest plates. Bonus kudos if you can come up with the name of that plate.
Comments
Lake Malombe in the southern part of the Nation of Malawi in Africa. It is within the extentional East African Rift Zone
Yes!
Still waiting for someone who can name the plate involved. Also, what features can we see in this image?
It looks like a rift-parallel north-south fault, with an east-west offset to the south, possible faceted spurs, alluvial fans.
The Somalian African Plate. As for the features, I see lots of little clouds and their shadows over barren land.
The fans make a nice wavy pattern in the lake shore.
Heidi, the Somali plate is not what I was thinking.
If it’s not the Somali, and seeina as it’s the Western shore of the lake (according to that Z on the compass), then it’s the Nubian Plate. According to a lot of sources, the western shore has quite a few “plugs” that are the surfacing of some old vents which are (I think) now filled with a variety of metamorphosed old lavas.
(If this is a duplicate, kill it – I couldn’t see the comment but it could be of course awaiting moderation).
The Western Shore is the Nubian Plate, the other half of the poor, separated African plate. There are also a number of vents or plugs, with exposed volcanics, some metamorphosed, and some showing those lovely carbonatite lavas for which I am prepared to go hit Africa with a vengeance, complete with hammer and maggot-frying glass
Both your comments are worth keeping!
No, the answer is that the young plate is the brand-new Lwandle plate (named less than 10 years ago), which runs from here down to the Indian-Antarctic ridge and includes much of Madagascar and southeast Africa. It has diffuse edges with the Somali plate on the east and the Nubian plate on the west.
I am confused. Who is going to be the winner of this WOGE?
Cole Kingsbury. He said on Twitter yesterday: “I will have #WoGE # 245 up within the next 24-72 hours…stay tuned!”
Cool! Although if it gets solved as fast as they have been lately, there will have been three more by the time I wake up tomorrow. Happy fault-filled New Years!
Where on Google Earth #245 is now up at http://flowbanded.blogspot.com/ enjoy!