{"id":165339,"date":"2025-12-03T04:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T04:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/165339\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T04:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T04:48:08","slug":"nasa-captures-a-strange-formation-in-the-sahara-and-its-older-than-dinosaurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/165339\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Captures a Strange Formation in the Sahara\u2014 and It’s Older Than Dinosaurs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three shadowy plateaus rising from the endless sands of Mauritania have captivated scientists once again. A recent observation by NASA\u2019s Earth Observatory revealed how these \u201cblack mesas\u201d, relics of the Paleozoic Era, are still shaping the desert today\u2014forming dunes that stretch for miles and even carving out wind-swept voids visible from orbit.<\/p>\n

A Snapshot From Space<\/p>\n

When an astronaut aboard the International Space Station captured a high-resolution image of southern Mauritania in May 2023, what appeared was more than just a desert landscape. Three nearly identical, dark-topped hills\u2014known as mesas\u2014stood side by side, framed by long tails of rippling sand. To the east, delicate dunes shimmered in hues of red and gold; to the west, the sands vanished completely. According to NASA\u2019s Earth Observatory<\/a>, this stark contrast is not random but the product of ancient geology interacting with modern atmospheric forces.<\/p>\n

\"Image\"Credit: NASA\u2019s Earth Observatory<\/p>\n

These mesas, each flat-topped and nearly circular, are coated in a thin layer of rock varnish, a naturally occurring glaze formed by clay, manganese, and iron oxides over thousands of years. This varnish, fixed in part by microorganisms, gives the mesas their striking black hue\u2014making them appear like shadows cast upon the Sahara\u2019s pale floor. The varnish has survived millions of years of erosion, standing as testimony to the planet\u2019s enduring geological memory.<\/p>\n

The Desert\u2019s Dual Personality<\/p>\n

What makes the scene so extraordinary is the juxtaposition of two opposing worlds: dunes on one side and bare rock on the other. The Earth Observatory reports that strong, persistent winds blow from the east, carrying sand grains that gather along the mesas\u2019 slopes, creating \u201cclimbing dunes\u201d that appear to scale the rocky walls. These massive ridges feed into sweeping arcs of barchan dunes\u2014crescent-shaped sand waves that stream out like tails behind the mesas.<\/p>\n

To the west, however, there is silence. Here, high-velocity air currents whip through narrow gaps between the mesas, creating wind scour, a phenomenon that sweeps sand away instead of depositing it. The result is a \u201cdune-free zone,\u201d a barren corridor in a sea of dust. This delicate balance of airflow, topography, and mineral surface explains why sand behaves so differently on either side\u2014a small but fascinating meteorological puzzle visible from hundreds of miles above Earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Echoes From the Paleozoic<\/p>\n

Geologists believe that during the Paleozoic Era\u2014between 541 and 252 million years ago\u2014all three mesas were once part of a single, vast rock formation. Over millions of years, relentless cycles of erosion by water and wind fractured the structure into the isolated towers we see today. These remnants are akin to the Richat Structure, also known as the \u201cEye of the Sahara,\u201d located roughly 460 kilometers north of Gu\u00e9rou, Mauritania.<\/p>\n

The mesas are part of a broader family of formations found across the planet, from the deserts of the American Southwest to the Martian surface, where similar erosional features testify to ancient climatic activity. The image captured by astronauts thus bridges Earth and Mars\u2014two worlds sculpted by the same relentless natural forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three shadowy plateaus rising from the endless sands of Mauritania have captivated scientists once again. A recent observation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-165339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}