Tuesday, November 22, 2011

WOGE 320

Thanks to Felix Bossert for providing an easy and unrestricted WOGE 319.  I happened to log on at the right moment, and I was able to find Hiti Atoll in the South Pacific easily just by flying aimlessly over some of the areas where coral atolls are common.  Thanks to Péter Luffi also, for graciously waiting just long enough for me to post my comment first :-)

Now, what to post for WOGE 320...  Thanks to Felix again, for your suggestion!  I have seen this joked about, but I don't know if anyone has actually done it.  So here it is -- A single sand dune in the middle of a desert.

I will upload larger views if it is necessary, but I suspect this may be an easy challenge for some players.  As always, the first person to find this location with Google Earth and provide a brief description of the geology wins the privilege of providing the next challenge. I will invoke the Schott Rule this time, just because no one has used it in the last month.  If you don't know what the Schott Rule is, then check out the New Players section at Felix's blog.  Posting time is 3:05 UTC

It has been a few days, so I am providing a more standard view.  This is technically a "historical image", but the part with the sand dune is exactly the same.  When you find the location on Google Earth you might notice that something interesting happened in the ten days after this image was made.
I did not expect that this would be a difficult challenge, but now I suspect that everyone may be looking in the wrong deserts.  I would rather not give an even larger view, since it would make things too easy.  Instead, I give you a close-up view of part of the dune at top center in the second image.  I hope that a careful look at this will give someone the hint they need to find the proper desert.  If you have already spent more than fifteen or twenty minutes searching in a particular country, you are probably on the wrong track.
The second picture above is just for comparison.  It is at the same scale and was taken on the same day of the year but, obviously, in a different part of the world.  I hope it makes the hint more clear.