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NASA/JPL/NIMA.
"AfricaSRTM-SinaiPeninsula-picasa.jpg"
Online Image. Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. 20 Jan. 2006 58kb. 417x799px.
<http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04957>
Sinai Peninsula
This image shows an SRTM data set for the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.
It was created from an original map produced from data obtained by NASA's
Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). Using Google's free Picasa2 program, the
color, contrast, and lighting were enhanced to obtain the image above. The
original image can be viewed at the NASA link above.
The Sinai Peninsula, located between Africa and Asia, is a result of those two continents pulling
apart from each other. Earth's crust is cracking, stretching, and lowering along the two northern
branches of the Red Sea, namely the Gulf of Suez, seen here on the west (left), and the Gulf of Aqaba,
seen to the east (right). This color-coded shaded relief image shows the triangular nature of the
peninsula, with the coast of the Mediterranean Sea forming the northern side of the triangle. The
Suez Canal can be seen as the narrow vertical blue line in the upper left connecting the Red Sea
to the Mediterranean. The peninsula is divided into three distinct parts; the northern region
consisting chiefly of sandstone, plains and hills, the central area dominated by the Tih Plateau,
and the mountainous southern region where towering peaks abound. Much of the Sinai is deeply
dissected by river valleys, or wadis, that eroded during an earlier geologic period and break
the surface of the plateau into a series of detached massifs with a few scattered oases.
Two visualization methods were combined to produce the image: shading and color coding of
topographic height. The shade image was derived by computing topographic slope in the
northwest-southeast direction, so that northwest slopes appear bright and southeast slopes
appear dark. Color coding is directly related to topographic height, with green at the lower
elevations, rising through yellow and tan, to white at the highest elevations.
Location: 30 degrees north latitude, 34 degrees east longitude
Orientation: North toward the top,
Mercator projection
Size: 289 by 445 kilometers (180 by 277 miles)
Image Data: shaded and colored
SRTM elevation model
Date Acquired: February 2000
NASA/JPL/NIMA.
Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. 20 Jan. 2006
<http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04957>
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