30° 4

30° +

LIBRARY OF WELLES LEY COLLEGE

PURCHASED FROM LIBRARY FUNDS

EARTH PHOTOGRAPHS

from

Gemini VI througrh XII

Scientific and Technical Information Division OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY UTILIZATION NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE

1968

ADMINISTRATION

Washington, D.C.

Gemini spacecraft were built at the McDonnell Air- craft Corp. plant in St. Louis, Mo. Two are shown here undergoing tests in the plant's "white room."

An Agena target was photographed from Gemini XII while connected to it by a Dacron tether. This permitted stabilization by the gravity gradient.

The Gemini V crew, Gordon Cooper and Pete Con- rad, acknowledged the good wishes of the pad crew as they walked toward the gantry for their flight.

The first two-man crew in space, John Young and Gus Grissom, were photographed inside the cabin of Gemini III just before their flight in March 1965.

The Gemini spacecraft were launched from the Kennedy Space Center on the east coast of Florida. The countdowns were heard throughout the world.

7 Astronaut Ed White's "walk in space" was the fii-st extravehicular activity by U.S. astronauts. Some photos were taken with the hatch open.

Gemini VI and Gemini VII were the first two to rendezvous in space. Gemini VII also set an en- durance record of 14 days during its mission.

Gemini astronauts landed on the sea. A recovery carrier and rescue swimmers are seen here attaching a flotation collar before opening the hatch.

EARTH PHOTOGRAPHS

from

Gemini VI through XII

Scientific and Technical Information Division

OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY UTILIZATION 1968

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

Washington, D.C.

Us 6

For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 - Price $8.00 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 68-61301

FOREWORD

Photographs of terrain and weather taken during Gemini flights showed that both geological and manmade landmarks and storms in the Earth's atmosphere could be viewed advantageously from orbital altitudes. The many spectacular color photographs of the Earth brought back by the astronauts have both heightened men's appreci- ation of their environment and increased scientists' knowledge of it. This Special Publication contains a mere sampling of the photo- graphs available.

The Gemini program was approved in November 1961 to develop long-duration manned flight and rendezvous capabilities. In 1963 the program goals were broadened to encompass four more objectives: precise reentry control, attainment of flight and ground crew pro- ficiency, extravehicular capability, and scientific experiments. When this program was completed in November 1966, the astronauts had acquired nearly 2000 man-hours of space-flight experience and all six objectives had been achieved.

The two-week flight of Gemini VII in December 1965 was the culmination of a series of progressively longer missions, and demon- strated that men could survive and work in space effectively for longer periods than a lunar voyage would require. A further requirement for the journey to the Moon is rendezvous and docking, and this was accomplished repeatedly by a variety of techniques. In postdocking maneuvers the Gemini astronauts used the thrust of the Agena target vehicle to set new altitude and speed records, thus increasing confi- dence that their successors will be able to proceed farther into space.

When the Apollo spacecraft returns from the Moon, its high veloc- ity requires that its flight path into the Earth's atmosphere be con- trolled with great precision. The Gemini astronauts used aerodynamic lift generated by their spacecraft and an onboard computer to guide their vehicles to preselected landing areas. Their successes, and early Apollo flights, provided increased assurance that the men going to the Moon could return safely.

Both flight and ground crews demonstrated great proficiency during the Gemini program. On rendezvous missions, the Gemini spacecraft had to be launched after the target vehicle with precision measured in seconds. This was done with complete success. Dual

launching made a rendezvous possible in less than one orbit after the liftoff of the Gemini spacecraft on the 11th mission. The Mission Control Center in Houston, Tex., repeatedly controlled missions in- volving more than one space vehicle, and controlled a dual mission in which both vehicles were manned during the Gemini VII/VI mission.

Extravehicular activity by Gemini astronauts showed the need for body restraints, and on the final mission numerous planned work tasks outside the vehicle were performed without difficulty. The tech- nological experiments also included tethering a target vehicle to a spacecraft, as an aid to station keeping and a means of inducing a small artificial gravity field by rotation.

The scientific experiments undertaken at the same time as these unprecedented demonstrations of what men can do in space yielded information that was hitherto beyond the reach of scientists. A total eclipse of the Sun was observed from space for the first time and the airglow and zodiacal light were photographed.

The personnel, equipment, and facilities employed in the Gemini program have since been integrated into other NASA and Department of Defense manned space flight programs. The technological legacy of the Gemini flights lives on. It is a harbinger of greater achievements both in space and on Earth, achievements with more beneficial results than our generation can now foresee.

George E. Mueller

Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, NASA

PREFACE

Xhe photographs in this volume resulted from two of 22 scientific experiments that were part of the Gemini program. These were the experiments in Synoptic Terrain Photography (S-005) and Synoptic Weather Photography (S-006) . Many of the pictures obtained in these experiments already have been put to geologic, meteorologic, and oceanographic use. Historians and directors of human affairs, as well as students of physical phenomena, have found the perspectives af- forded stimulating, and the value of such portraits of the Earth in agricultural, urban, and other kinds of research is becoming increas- ingly evident.

The Gemini science experiments were a continuation and expan- sion of work begun during the Mercury series of flights. These experi- ments were designed to take advantage of man's presence in space. The astronauts acted as the sensors, manipulators, and operators of the equipment, and exercised judgment based on their understand- ing of the objectives. Their interest, imagination, and ingenuity con- tributed greatly to the success of the program.

John E. Naugle

Associate Administrator,

Office of Space Science and Applications, NASA

The first rendezvous of two space vehicles is shown here in fine detail as photographed by Tom Stafford in Gem- ini VI. Gemini VIFs thruster ports appear as dark, round spots from 40 feet away. The yellowish cover- ing on the right end is a thermal shield that protected various subsystems mounted in the adapter section. The trailing straps covered an explosive cord that sev- ered all connections between the spacecraft and its launch vehicle when they separated. Gemini VI was starting its sixth orbit when this picture was taken.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 15, 1965 S65-63204

The rendezvous target for the Gemini XII mission was the Agena space vehicle, shown (on the next page) be- fore docking over the Pacific Ocean near the end of the third orbit. The naillike object in the foreground is a heavy metal bar that is attached to the nose section of the Gemini spacecraft to facilitate docking. When docked, the Agena was able to propel the two space- craft to the highest altiti^des achieved by man up to that time. This was done during the Gemini XI mis- sion when Astronauts Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon looked down at the Earth from 741.5 nautical miles.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 15, 1966 S66-62756

Gemini VII appears balanced on the horizon as the two spacecraft orbit the earth. Its rendezvous and the recov- ery section in the spacecraft nose, which housed the par- achute and other recovery aids, is shown in this picture. The small white objects to the left of the words "United States" are horizon scanners that measure spacecraft at- titude. The command pilot's window is directly above. The two protrusions from the white, adapter section are cryogenically cooled radiometers, part of the Gemini in- flight experiments program. Cloud formations seen be- low the spacecraft result from convective clouds pushing up through broad areas of cirriform clouds.

Gemini IX rendezvoused with an augmented target docking adapter (shown at the far right) that was launched as a replacement for an Agena target which had failed to achieve orbit on an earlier attempt. Dock- ing with this spacecraft was not possible because its plas- tic nose fairing did not separate and it was quickly named the "angiy alligator." "Early in the first daylight after rendezvous," Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford wrote of this picture, "our suspicion that something was amiss was photographically confirmed. The 'angry alligator' appeared to be nibbling at Roques atoll." This hap- pened over the Caribbean, north of Caracas, and the Isla Orchila can be seen. Clouds in the upper right hide the coast of Venezuela.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 15, 1965 S65-63188

GEMINI IX JUNE 3, 1966 366-37923

CONTENTS

Page

Introduction 1

Across the Atlantic 5

Northwest Africa 37

Northeast Africa 65

The Indian Ocean and Australia 97

Southern Asia 121

Across the Pacific 153

South America 173

Mexico 203

The United States 227

Appendix A 257

Appendix B 261

Glossary 321

Bibliography 327

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

iHE photographs in this boolc were chosen from among hundreds that the Gemini astronauts took in the course of scientific experiments that inchided synoptic terrain and weather photography. In these particular experiments, Paul D. Lowman, Jr., of the Goddard Space FHght Center, and Kennetli M. Nagler and Stanley D. Soules, of the Environmental Science Senices Administration, were the principal investiga- tors. Robert E. Stevenson, of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries at Galveston, Tex., joined them as a representative of oceanographic interests.

Since NASA's charter requires disclosure of scientific information likely to be generally useful, Robert E. Gilruth, Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, pro- posed that a representative group of the pictures now available be published for the use of the many scientists who are concerned with features of the Earth's surface. Jocelyn R. Gill, Gemini Science Manager, was responsible for the organization of the book and headed the technical panel that recommended publication of these photographs.

Richard W. Underwood and Herbert Tiedemann, of the Manned Spacecraft Center, identified the areas shown in the photographs. The principal investigators provided information for the captions with the help of Dr. Stevenson, Mr. Tiede- mann, Herbert Blodget of the Goddard Space Flight Center, James Williams of the Environmental Science Services Administration, James Bailey of the Bureau of Com- mercial Fisheries, Lawrence Dunkelman of Goddard Space Flight Center, and Samuel H. Hubbard of the Office of Manned Space Flight. The U.S. Geological Survey library staff was especially helpful to them.

Senor Ing. Guille:-mo Salas contributed geological information regarding pic- tures taken over Mexico. A. L. Grabham and L. Moskowitz of the U.S. Navy Ocean- ographic Office and other representatives of Government agencies and contractors served with NASA personnel on the technical panel, and a roster of the individuals who assisted its members would be extremely long. Among those who contributed especially valuable help and advice were John Bridgewater, Le Forrest Miller, Jose Toro, Ronald Dalrymple, Robert Dubinsky, and William Vest.

Part I. Introduction

Ihis is a companion volume to Earth Photographs from Gemi7ii III, IV, and V, which was issued in 1967 as Special Publication 129. This one presents photo- graphs taken on seven later flights, those of Gemini VI-A, VII, VIII, IX. X, XI, and XII. The crews, the dates, durations, and altitudes of these flights are listed in table 1, which also shows the cameras and films that were used on each flight.

In these seven flights, Gemini spacecraft orbited the Earth 421 times and the astronauts took nearly 1900 high-quality color photographs of its surface from above the atmosphere. Those reproduced here are a representative sampling of them, chosen with the current interests of earth scientists in mind.

In the previous \-olume, SP-129, the pictures taken on each flight were separ- ated and presented sequentially. In this one they are juxtaposed, to group them geographically. This was done for two reasons: To enable a person interested in a particular geographic area to turn quickly to the photographs of that area, and to enable the reader to imagine himself circling the world and seeing it in some- what the same way that it appeared to the astronauts.

The pictorial journey in the pages that follow begins at the launching site of the Gemini spacecraft, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It proceeds eastward between the latitudes of approximately 30° North and 30° South. Photographs taken on different flights and different revolutions, at different altitudes and times of day, and in different seasons of the year are intermingled in this presentation. The first and the last pictures in the book are both of Florida, but they are separated here by pictures taken at various times between December 15, 1965, and November 16, 1966, on many journeys around the world. The dates given below the photos are in Greenwich mean time.

The nine groups into which the pictures are divided in this volume correspond approximately with ways in which the Earth is often divided in an atlas of the type readily available in many homes and in most libraries. This facilitates use of com- mon maps while examining these photographs. Attention is called in many of the captions both to geological divisions of the Earth and to national boundaries.

The explanatory notes beneath the pictures suggest some, but by no means all, of the ways in which scientists concerned with features of the Earth are finding high- altitude photography helpful. The objectives of the Gemini flights included a variety of scientific experiments for investigators representing numerous distinct scientific disciplines. These are listed in table II.

A Hasselblad 500C camera and a Hasselblad super-wide-angle camera, mod- ified by NASA, were used on the Gemini flights. On the last four flights a speci- ally designed 70-millimeter camera built by the J. A. Maurer Co. also was used. The pictures chosen for this book are presented in the square format of the original film.

0\'erlapping photographs were taken of many areas and can be used to obtain stereoscopic views. NASA can provide either transparencies or photographic prints of these pictures to members of the academic and scientific community who have

specific professional uses for them in mind. Researchers should address specific in- quiries, indicating their requirements, either to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Manned Spacecraft Center, Science and Applications Directorate, Houston, Tex. 77058, or to the National Space Science Data Center, Code 601, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. 20771.

Persons having commercial or industrial applications in mind should address their requests for such photographic materials to Technology Applications Center, University of New Mexico, Post Office Box 181, Albuquerque, N. Mex. 81706.

Table I. Gemini Flights VI-A Through XII

Flight	Crew	Date	GMT	Duration	Orbit (approx)	Camera	Film 2
VI-Ai	Capt. W. M. Schirra, Jr.	Dec. 15, 1965	13:37	25 hr 51 min,	100 by 161	Modified Hassel-	Eastman
	Maj. T. P. Stafford, Jr.	Dec. 16, 1965	15:28	16 revolutions	miles (statute)	blad 500C, 80-mm Zeiss planar lens, //2.8	Kodak Ekta- chrome MS (S.O. 217)
VII. ..	Lt. Col. Frank Borman	Dec. 4, 1965	19:30	330 hr 35 min,	100 by 204	Hasselblad 500C	S.O. 217
	Comdr. J. A. Lovell, Jr.	Dec. 18, 1965	14:05	206 revolutions	miles	w/80-mm Zeiss planar lens //2.8 and 250-mm Zeiss sonnar lens, //4.5	8443 (infra- red) 3400 2475
VIII. .	N. A. Armstrong	Mar. 16, 1966	16:41	10 hr 42 min.	100 by 161	Hasselblad 500C	S.O. 217
	Maj. D. R. .Scott	Mar. 17, 1966	3:22	7 revolutions	miles	w/80-mm planar lens, //2.8
IX. .	Lt. Col. T. P. Stafford	June 3, 1966	13:39	72 hr 21 min,	99 by 166	Hasselblad 500C	S.O. 217
	Lt. Comdr. Eugene A. Cernan	June 6, 1966	14:00	45 revolutions	miles	w/80-mm planar; Hassel- blad super- wide-angle-C w/38-mm Zeiss Biogon, //4.5; J. A. Maurer 70-mm space camera w/Schneider 80-mm lens, //2.8

Persons wishing such pictures for other purposes should address their inquiries to the Audio-Visual Branch, Public Information Division, Code FP, NASA, Washington, D.C. 20546 (telephone: Area code 202, 96-21721).

Additional information regarding the Gemini program will be found in NASA SP-138, Gemini Summary Conference, priced at $2.75 and for sale by the Super- intendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. NASA SP-129, Earth Photographs from Gemini III, IV, and V, may be purchased for $7 from the Superintendent of Documents.

Table I (Continued) Gemini Flights VI-A Through XII

Flight	Crew	Date	GMT	Duration	Orbit (approx)	Camera	Film 2
X	Comdr. John W. Young	July 18, 1966	22:20	70 hr 46 min,	100 by 167	Hasselblad super-	S.O. 217
	Maj. Michael Collins	July 21, 1966	21:07	44 revolutions	miles and excursion to 475 miles	wide-angle-C, Zeiss Biogon 38-mm lens, //4.5;J. .A. Maurer 70-mm w/Schneider 80-mm lens, //2.8
XI. . .	Comdr. Charles Conrad, Jr.	Sept. 12, 1966	14:42	71 hr 17 rain.	100 by 177	J. A. Maurer	S.O. 368
	Lt. Comdr. Richard Gordon, Jr.	.Sept. 15, 1966	13:58	44 revolutions	miles and excursion to 850 miles	70-mm space camera w/80- mm Schneider lens,//2.8; Hasselblad super-wide- angle w/38-mm Biogon lens, //4.5
XII	Capt. J. \. Lovell, Jr.	Nov. 11, 1966	20:46	94 hr 34 min,	100 by 175	J. A. Maurer	S.O. 368
	Maj. E. A. .\ldrin, Jr.	Nov. 15, 1966	19:21	59 revolutions	miles	70-mm space camera w/80- mm Schneider lens,//2.8; Hasselblad superwide-angle w/38-ram Zeiss Biogon lens, //4.5

' Gemini VI was rescheduled to follow Gemini VII and was

renumbered "Gemini VI-.A." ^ Films used for synoptic terrain and synoptic weather photo- graphy experinents were;

Name T^Jpf Size mm

S.O. 217 Eastman Kodak Etkachrome

transparency 70

S.O. 368 Eastman Kodak Ektachrome

transparency (improved) 70

8443 Eastman Kodak Ektachrome,

infrared 70

3400 Eastman Kodak Panatomic X

(ASA-80) 70

2475 High Speed (.AS.-\-1200) 70

Table II

Gemini Science Experiments +, experiment successful; — , experiment incompl

lete

Title of investigation

Principal investigator

FUghts

No.

HI

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

SOOl . .

Zodiacal Light and Airglow Photography Sea Urchin Egg Growth — Zero-G Frog Egg Growth — Zero-G Effect of Zero-G and Radiation on Blood Synoptic Terrain Photography Synoptic Weather Photography Spectrophotography of Clouds Visual Acuity in Space Nuclear Emulsion Agena Micrometeorite Collection Airglow Horizon Photography Gemini Micrometeorite Collection Ultraviolet Astronomical Photography Gemini Ion Wake Measurement Libration Regions Photography Dim Sky Photography/- Image Orthicon Sodium Vapor Cloud Photography Ultraviolet Dust Photography

E. P. Ney, University of

+

-

+

+

S002..

R. S. Young, Ames Research Center R. S. Young, Ames

-

S003..

-

+ + + +

S004..

M. A. Bender, Oak Ridge National Laboratory . . . P. D. Lowman, Jr., Goddard Space Flight Center

+

S005 . .

+ +

+ + + +

+ +

+ +

+ +

-1-

S006 . .

K. Nagler and S. D. Soules, Environmental Science Services

-1-

S007 . .

F. Saiedy, Environmental Science Services

-

S008 . .

S. Q. Duntley, Scripps

+

S009 . ,

M. M. Shapiro, Naval Research Laboratory, and C. D. Fichtel, Goddard Space Flight Center

+

+ + + +

SOIO..

C. L. Hemenway, Dudley

+ + +

+ +

son..

M. J. Koomen, Naval

-1-

S012..

C. L. Hemenway, Dudley

-1-

S013..

K. G. Henize, Dearborn

-1-

S026 . .

D. Medved, Electro-

S029 . .

E. C. Morris, U.S.

S030 . .

E. P. Ney, University of Minnesota and C. Hemenway, Dudley

+

S051 . .

J. Blamont, University

S064..

C. L. Hemenway, Dudley Observatory

—

Part II. Across the Atlantic

I'll put a girdle round about the world in forty minutes," said Puck in A Midsum- mer-Night's Dream. The pages that follow show the Earth as one might see it from such a girdle.

This imaginary tour begins and ends at Cape Kennedy, from which the Gemini spacecraft were launched. The astronauts turned their cameras in numerous direc- tions while going around the world and photographed some sights from several sides and angles. Pictures that they took are not shown here in the order in which they were taken, but the date of each one is given below it.

Cape Kennedy is on Florida's east coast, near St. Augustine, the oldest citv in the United States. The astronauts sped east from Florida, over steppingstones of histoiy that are still called the West Indies. On some of their many crossings of the Atlantic, their first glimpses of the Old World were of the Canary' Islands, from which 15th-century explorers sailed south and west to discover a relatively small planet's immensity. Several of their photographs of the West Indies and the Canary Islands have been included here because contemporary oceanographers and meteor- ologists are finding them highly informative.

Gemini photographs already have been used to check interpretations of pictures transmitted to Earth from unmanned weather satellites, and there is no longer any doubt that a multitude of constructive uses will be found for photographs taken from high altitudes. "Our unearthly satellites," Edgar M. Cortright, Director of the Langley Research Center, has written confidently, "will help us solve a host of earthly problems."

This nearly vertical view of Florida's Atlantic coast in- cludes both Ponce de Leon inlet at the far left and, along the shore near the right edge, a tow of pads. The Gemini spacecraft were launched there. Taken with a telephoto lens, the picture clearly shows the highway through Titusville, buildings along it, lakes west of it.

and the bridges to the Kennedy Space Center on Mer- ritt Island. Between a thin cirrus-cloud layer and the bulge in the shoreline are two white circles. A promi- nent roadway leads to crawlei-ways that end at the cir- cles, which are the sites of launch pads built for manned flight to the Moon.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 6, 1965 S65-63807

The Gulf Stream enters the Atlantic here. Its border is marked in this photo by a cumulus cloud line extend- ing northward from Florida's east coast. Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., stood in the cockpit seat while the spacecraft hatch was open to take this picture. It includes a western part of Great Bahama Bank, Cuba,

and the Isle of Pines beyond Cuba in the upper center. Smooth waters can be seen beyond the tip of Florida, and an area of divergence shows parallel to its west coast. Such features denote water conditions that are significant to the fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66-63418

The Sun's glitter pattern had shifted eastward when this picture was taken, a minute after the preceding one. Oceanographers can obtain information about the changes in the sea's surface from pairs of pictures such as these. Cuba extends nearly all the way across the top of this one. Near the center, to the left of Grand

Bahama Island, is Great Abaco Island. The islands of Andros, New Providence, and Eleuthera also can be seen despite the scattered clouds. A dark irregular spot in the sea near the center, left of an intense reflection of sunlight, indicates the location of the Little Bahama Bank.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66-63423

Bimini Island is in the center of this eastward view from over the Florida Keys in the foreground. South of Bim- ini, U-shaped bars indicate the spillover of water onto the shallow surface of the Great Bahama Bank. Similar bars can be seen around the Berry Island group and the northern end of Andros Island in upper center. In

each case the water spills toward a central portion of the Great Bahama Bank during storm surges. A long sandbar is formed where flooding waters meet. On the ebb, water flows into a channel between the Great Ba- hama Bank and Grand Bahama Island to follow the Gulf Stream northward.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66-62908

The large mass of cirrus and cirrostratus clouds in this northwesterly view of the sky over the Atlantic Ocean is the western edge of tropical depression Celia, which rapidly intensified and became a hurricane the following day. Cuba is at the left edge of this photo, and the coast of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina can be seen near

GEMINI X JULY 19, 1966 866-45692

the horizon. The cumulus-cloud streets at the left edge of the cloud mass are alined with the low-level wind, which spirals around and inward toward the storm's center. Pictures from operational meteorological satel- lites, less detailed but covering larger areas than the Gem- ini views, are used to track tropical storms.

10

From left to right above the spacecraft's nose here are parts of Abaco Island, shoals and flats around the Berry Islands, and the tip of Andros Island. New Providence Island, the site of Nassau, is in the upper center. Sand flats and the elongation of spillover bars shov^f the di- rection of the currents. The net flow between the Ber-

ry Islands and Andros Island is from east to west. Lay- ers of stratocumlus in the upper right are spread across the deep waters of the Tongue of the Ocean. In those clouds one can clearly see an unusual break. This kind of pattern has been noted in other pictures of strat- ocumulus over the sea.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 11, 1965 S65-63753

11

Above the northern tip of Andres Island, in the center, the sea off the Florida coast is light blue where it is shallow and darker blue where the Northeast Provi- dence Channel leads into the Tongue of the Ocean to the south. Dunelike depositions of sand can be seen in the shallows. The Berry Islands are in the fore-

ground, and New Providence Island at the upper left. Patches of cumulus and stratocumulus cover some of the view, and a band of cirrus crosses the upper part. Although the Great Bahama Bank began to form in the Cretaceous period, coral built up the present islands after the sea-level rise that followed the last glaciation.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 5, 1965 S65-63825

12

Tropical clouds camouflaged the islands bordering die Caribbean Sea when this photo was taken. The Agena target vehicle was tethered to Gemini XI, and Jamaica lay directly above it in this northeasterly view. In the upper left, cirrostratus covered a disturbed area con- taining thunderstorms, and elsewhere cumulus and

cumulus congestus covered the region under a sparse veil of cirrus clouds. Eastern and central Cuba were in the top center and beyond them the Great Bahama Bank was visible. Serrana Bank was left of center at the lower edge, and reefs and cays of Bajo Nuevo were to the right of the Agena.

GEMINI XI SEPEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54571

13

The roughly diagonal line here is Cuba's north coast. Cumulus and cirrocumulus clouds hover over its farms. Caibarien is under the clouds at the lower left, and the pouch-shaped harbor of Nuevitas is in the upper right corner. Slight submergence of the land in recent geolog- ical time has notched this shoreline, and left many is-

lands, reefs, and bays. The light-blue area offshore is the Great Bahama Bank, where the sea is only about 30 feet deep. The darker, circular area at the upper left edge is the Tongue of the Ocean, where it is about a mile deep. One can see how submarine erosion has notched the sea floor around this deep area.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13, 1965 865-04025

14

^"•- {:'i/-.^

J*wfevisi-^

	*»'■•<'■
	' ' >'■ • ■":
	i
l^^^--
	... N>?

At the left here is Cuba's southern coast. The keys of Jardines de la Reina, south of Camagiiey province, are in the center. Santa Cruz del Sur is a short distance be- yond the upper end of this strip of the coast, and Trin- idad is below it. The keys shown are on the outer edge of large shoal banks and are heavily ringed with coral

reefs. Submarine features of the area between the keys and the mainland can be seen clearly enough to be charted from this photograph. The geology is mostly Tertiary sediments overlying folded Cretaceous and Jurassic strata. Marine sediments are confined to the coast and offshore areas.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13 1965 S65-64026

15

The eastern tip of Cuba is at the upper left here, the U.S. naval base at Bahia de Guantanamo in the center, and Santiago de Cuba farther down the south coast. Daytime heating of the land had caused typical cumu- lus activity over Oriente Province. Above Guantanamo Bay you see the edge of the Sun's reflection in the Wind-

ward Passage. Wave trains and slicks in the glitter pat- tern indicate the general water motion. A shear in the cloud line indicates low-level convergence over a shear in the water. Water motion and waves often can be seen best when a photo includes the Sun's reflection from the sea.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 5, 1965 S65-63826

16

Most of Haiti is shown here with cumulus clouds piled over the highlands. The large island in the center is the lie de la Gonave. East of it, at the lower right end of a nearly rectangular harbor, is Port au Prince. Near it are two large lakes, between which the common boundan' of Haiti and the Dominican Republic runs; it ends left of

the prominent capes in the lower right corner. Coral reefs border much of the coastline. The upper peninsu- la is an extension of the Cordillera Central. It has a core of Cretaceous and older rocks, flanked by Tertiary and younger sediments. The lower peninsula's structure and stratigraphy are similar.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13, 1965 S65-64027

17

The southernmost tip of Hispaniola is now in the fore- ground. The large lake above the peninsula is Lago En- riquillo in the Dominican Republic. The smaller lake above it is the Etang Saumatre in Haiti. Lago En- riquillo is 131 feet below sea level and contains a large island. The Valle de Neiba is to the right. The big valley

in the upper center is the Plaine du Cul de Sac, adja- cent to the harbor of Port au Prince, Haiti's Capital. Graben faulting along a major wrench fault on the south side of the island produced this coast-to-coast valley and lake system. To the north, another mountain mass is also bordered by a fault valley.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13. 1965 S65-64028

18

>*^-

-**-^;: -^.'

'^^-'

.«#-:%

;v^ ^;'

Crooked and Acklins Islands are in the center, and Long Island above them in this photo taken north of Cuba's eastern tip. Part of Mayaguana Island is in the lower right. Thin white lines along the northern shores of the islands are surf from long waves coming from the open Atlantic Ocean. Variations in color in the Bight of

Acklin reveal calcareous sand and spillover bars. The small cumulus clouds are in lines parallel to low-level northeast winds. Several large-scale cloud bands are alined in northwest winds aloft. An upper air trough moved through this area a few hours before the picture was taken.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 8, 1965 S65-63857

19

Mayaguana Island is in the center, and Acklins Island in the upper left of this photo taken as the spacecraft proceeded east over the Bahamas. Abraham's Bay is on the left side of Mayaguana. Although no ocean currents can be seen around the islands, strong surf and wave action is visible off their northeastern shores. A heavy

surf produced the white fringe on the eastern end of Mayaguana. Surf also sharpens the image of the Plana Cays that rise from the sea between the two large is- lands; waves were rolling over a reef half a mile off- shore, while the winds were from the east.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 8, l^fiS S65-63858

20

Guadeloupe's twin islands, Grande Terre and Basse Terre, are in the center of this photo of the French West Indies between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlan- tic. Marie Galante is to the left of the 583-square-mile main islands. One also can see La Desirade, lies des Saintes, and lies de la Petite Terre. The Dominica

Channel is left of Guadeloupe and the Guadeloupe Passage is to the north. Montserrat is in the upper right and Antigua in the lower right. The cloud distribution is typical of a fair-weather regime in the subtropics, and the weak alinement of the clouds indicates light, low- le\el winds from the southeast.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 8, 1965 S65-63855

21

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Meteorology has been one of the first and greatest ben- eficiaries of man's recently acquired ability to view the weather from high altitudes. This cyclonic circulation over the Atlantic Ocean was photographed about 400 miles southeast of Bermuda, while a Gemini spacecraft was docked with an Asfena tarafet vehicle. The storm's

center was near the circular clouds that you see around the antenna of the .'Vgena. Dense cirrostratus formed the cloud shield at the left, north of the center. The winds in the lower and middle troposphere were blow- insr counterclockwise about this center.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66-62913

79

This is a southeasterly view of the same cyclonic storm over the Atlantic southeast of Bermuda that was shown in the preceding picture. It covers the region to the right, and again the center of the disturbance is shown near the antenna of the Agena. Numerous cumulonimbus clouds can be seen throughout the right half of this

photo. Their anvillike tops usually point with the wind direction at their level. A few cellular-shaped lines of cumulus are seen near the right center. Operational use of data from cameras and other sensors in satellites has become routine in the first decade of man's exploration of space.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66-62914

23

What appears to be a large break in these clouds, asso- ciated with a cold front about 2000 miles east of Cape Kennedy, is really a shadow cast by a high cloud deck upon a lower one in early-morning sunlight. Such dark bands have been seen frequently in pictures transmitted from operational weather satellites and interpreted as

shadows from higher clouds, often oriented parallel to the upper wind flow. The Gemini astronauts were asked to look for and obtain pictures such as this, and their pictures have helped to convince students and skeptics that the operational weather-satellite pictures can be diagnosed correctly and beneficially.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 365-63143

24

This vast network of stratocumulus clouds lay near 20° N and 20° W. These are open cellular-type convective clouds in which air rises along the cell walls and sinks in the centers. This is the opposite of what occurs when a closed cellular pattern is formed. The surface wind in the foreground here was from the northeast, right to

left, at 15 to 20 knots. Downwind the cloud openings decreased, and in the background they tended to aline themselves in rows parallel to the wind. This type of or- ganized convection is typical of fields in which the wind's speed increases with height. The blue band along the horizon is the Earth's troposphere.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63264

25

These stratocumulus clouds organized in approximately polygonal closed cells were seen southwest of the Canary Islands. To produce this type of pattern, there is a gen- eral weak rising motion below and in the cloud patches up to a stable layer, perhaps 1000 or 2000 feet above sea level. This stable layer inhibits further vertical mo-

tion, so there is an outflow from the cloud area and a descending and, hence, drying, motion in the clear bands between the clouds. This type of mesoscale con- vection frequently occurs in an oceanic anticyclone. The large hole at the lower right was an eddy caused by wind blowing past one of the islands.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63146

26

Here, on a June day, the Canary Islands come into view. The tiny one at the left is Hierro. Geographers once drew the first meridian there because they knew noth- ing of the world west of it. The dark circular spot as your eyes swing to the right is Gomera. Above it is La Palma. That big arrow in the sea is Tenerife. Below its

tip is Gran Canaria. The day that this photo was taken, cumulus clouds were piled on the windward, northeast- em slopes of the three Canary Islands that lay closest to Africa, and clouds connected with an upper-air, low- pressure system were at the right near the horizon.

GEMINI IX JUNE 6, 1966 866-38442

27

This and the next picture of the Canary Islands were taken in morning light, actually on the revolution before the previous picture. The patch of cirrus and cirrostratus clouds off the Morocco coast and the streaks of cirrus over the land are alined with a southwesterly upper- level wind. The large bright area in the lower left is

sunlight reflected from the sea. Apparently the shelter- ing effect of the Islands calmed the surface and greatly reduced the reflection towards the camera southeast of the Islands. The most conspicuous dark "tail" extends from Gomera, which lies between Tenerife, the largest island in this view, and La Palma and Hierro.

GEMINI IX JUNE 6, 1966 S66-38404

28

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Centuries ago the Canary Islands were known as the Fortunate Islands. They are less than 100 miles from Africa, and this photo shows both the islands and the coasts of Morocco and Spanish Sahara. The Sun rising over Africa made the sea glisten and small lines of cumuli at the left cast shadows on the water. The re-

flective pattern to the right of the Sun glitter was caused by waves on the surface of the sea. The crest-to-crest distance of the waves was about a nautical mile, which is unusually long. The sea was smoother and darker to the southeast in the lee of the islands.

GEMINI IX JUNE 6, 1966 566-38405

29

This and the next three pictures of the Canary Islands and their environment were taken in December. They reveal how such mountainous islands interrupt the flow of air over the sea and create eddies downstream in the lower atmosphere. Gran Canaria is in the center here, and part of Tenerife is visible. Clouds cover the upwind

slopes of Gran Canaria's 6394-foot peak. Las Palmas, the islands' largest city, is on Gran Canaria. The climate is warm and pleasant. Rainfall on the coast reaches 10 to 15 inches annually, and vegetation at the lower levels includes the species found throughout the North Afri- can Mediterranean littoral.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63151

30

Tenerife is in the center of this view of the Canary Is- lands. Its Pico de Teide crater is 12 198 feet high. These islands rise from great depths and present precipitous cliffs to the sea at many places. They consist of trachytes and basalts erupted intermittently from the ocean floor. They emerged toward the end of Cretaceous time and

subsequent volcanic activity has increased their size. The last reported eruption was in 1909 on Tenerife. The stratocumulus clouds seen here are typical of the area. Dark, parallel lines in some of them are billows caused by undulations in the wind flow at the altitude of the clouds.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63150

31

"This beautiful vortex is typical of the varied weather phenomena that can be seen from space," Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford wrote of this photo taken over the Canary Islands. Tenerife is in the upper left here. When northeast winds, under a temperature inversion layer, blow past the mountainous islands, the air is frequently

swirled into a chain of eddies similar to a Von Karman vortex street. The eddies become visible when strato- cumulus clouds are present. The center eddy here was 60 miles from Tenerife and its eye was 13 miles wide. Alongside it, about 35 miles away, other eddies rotated clockwise.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63149

32

This photo shows clouds west of those in the preceding picture. The island of Hierro was at the lower edge of the eddy eye in the lower right center, but was almost entirely obscured by stratocumulus clouds. The eddy chain reaching from the top to bottom was a part of a Von Karman vortex street formed in the lee of the larger

Canary Islands. This phenomenon is also found fre- quently near Guadalupe Island off Baja California. By studying photos of these eddies, researchers can obtain data to relate the physics of the natural vortex streets to their laboratory experiments. This is the last view of the Canary Islands area in this series.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63148

33

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This unusually fine display of cirrus clouds was photo- graphed during an approach to Africa about a dozen degrees south of the Canary Islands. These clouds lay off the coast of Senegal and Gambia. Cap Vert can be seen jutting into the -Atlantic Ocean at the lower left edge. A radiosonde ascent at Dakar, which is on that

cape, indicated that the winds were east-southeast at 20 knots at an altitude of about 6 kilometers, and becom- ing southwesterly at 25 to 40 knots above 8 kilometers at the time this picture was taken. The clouds in the foreground were probably 9 or more kilometers high.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER II, 1965 S65-63754

34

Ilha de Madeira is north of the Canary Islands, and about 535 miles southwest of Lisbon. On an approach to this island, noted for wines and embroideries, the as- tronauts found a cyclonic eddy in the stratocumulus clouds at the right. The island is a tiny dark spot about an inch to the left of the eddy. It is 35 miles long, up to

13 miles wide, and has a peak elevation of more than 6000 feet. It obstructs the broad northeasterly wind flow, and thus can induce eddies in the low-level wind similar to those caused by an obstruction in a wind tunnel. In this case the result was a fairly simple vortex in the sky near it.

GEMINI X JULY 20, 1966 S66-46040

35

"Europe and Spain enjoying good weather," Gemini X reported on one approach to Africa, "but not for long if that storm off GibraUar is an indicator." Actually, the cyclonic circulation southwest of the entry to the Medi- terranean was only an eddy on the edge of a large-scale northerly wind flow over the Atlantic, induced by the

configuration of the land and revealed by stratocumulus clouds. Portugal and Spain are at the left and Morocco is at the right. The geologic unity of southern Spain and Africa is suggested in this photo by the evident continuity of the Sierra Nevada and related mountains in Spain with the Riff Atlas in Morocco.

GEMINI X JULY 20, 1966 S66-46044

36

Part III. Northwest Africa

Astronaut James A. Lovell, Jr., thought that the broad western bulge of Africa was "truly the most interesting area of the world" to see from a spacecraft. Its dry and desolate terrain was nearly always free of clouds, and he found it a delight to photograph because there was so little haze to dim its beauty.

The atmosphere's heat and aridity over the sands of the Sahara is less welcome to travelers on the surface. For centuries this land was as hostile a barrier to ex- plorers as the Atlantic Ocean. Men went around rather than across Africa to learn about the world, and the chroniclers of their journeys dubbed it the "Dark Conti- nent." In photographs taken from very high altitudes, it now often seems to be the most brilliantly lighted continent.

Photographs spanning vast areas can be obtained more quickly and frequently from orbiting spacecraft than mosaics can be produced. They are increasing the geologists' knowledge of the structure of Africa. They can help engineers estimate the volume of flow in its watersheds. They can facilitate surveys of the distinctive resources available to the people of Africa's many ambitious new nations. Such photographs, as you will see in the pages that follow, are also often remarkably beautiful.

37

Africa's westernmost point, Cap Vert, is in the upper center here. The camera was jxjinted west, the space- craft was starting over the Sahara, and the view inchides part of Mauritania and all of Senegal and Gambia. Here one can clearly see the transition from tropical rain forests to open savanna and the desert. The Sene-

gal River flows through the prominent valley in the upper half of the photo. The escarpment in the lower right is between the Aouker Basin and the barren land of the Tagent Plateau. Senegal's glittering capital, Dakar, on Cap Vert is an historic port, about halfway between Europe and South America.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63251

38

Here you see the Atlantic coast of Africa north of Dakar and the most western part of Mauritania. There the dunes of Azefal and Akchar extend far inland and cross part of Spanish Sahara. The white spots in the upper left are salt flats called Sebkha de Ndrhamcha. Toward the right is the Bale du Levrier, flanked by Cap Timiris

on the south and Cap Blanc on the north. Port Etienne is on the latter, at the northern end of Mauritania's por- tion of the coast. Note the prominent fault in the right center of this photo. You will see more of northwestern Africa's geological structure in the next few pictures.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63255

39

The Dhar Adrar in Mauritania is the broad ridge under cirrus clouds in the lower center of this picture. Near its center are the circular Richat structures that intrigue geologists. One is more than 25 miles wide, the other only 5 miles wide. These structures have been ascribed to meteoritic impact, partly on the basis of a reported

discovery of coesite, but volcanic rocks in the large structure throw doubt on this theory of their origin. Igneous instrusions such as laccoliths may have pro- duced them. Under the clouds at the top of the picture, vegetation darkens the view of the terrain of Mauritan- ia and Seneafal.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 13, 1966 S66-63471

40

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This is one of the best photos yet obtained of the Dor- sale Reguibat. Geographers know it as the Yetti and Karet Plain. The south limb of the Tindouf syncline, at lower left, borders it on the north; and the Hank and El Hank bluffs, at upper right, border it on the south. The latter are a limb of the Taoudeni syncline,

of Hercynian age (Late Paleozoic), which has been list- ed among the world's largest. The apparent dip in the horizon at the right was caused by the window of the spacecraft. The long streaks at the left center are the southwestern end of the Erg Iguidi, which extends into Algeria from northern Mauritania.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 15, 1966 S66-63083

41

This view to the northeast over parts of Mauritania, Spanish Sahara, and Morocco includes some of the coast south of Agadir at lower left. A few cirriform clouds are along Morocco's southern coast. The view is approximately along the axis of the Tindouf syncline. Outcrops of rocks on each side dip inward, forming

limbs of the syncline. The immense uplift of Precam- brian rocks at the right is the Dorsale Reguibat. It may have resulted from removal of Paleozoic and younger rocks by erosion, or may have been a positive area that did not receive a great volume of sediments. Faint dark ridges show where it is cut by dikes.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-46063

42

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Morocco's Cap Juby is near the lower center here. Light spots near it are sah flats. Its annual rainfall is less than 10 inches and comes mostly in the winter, but the cool Canaries Current produces summer cloudiness that re- sembles California's stratus. Note how the cloud-cell size changes over the sea. Streaks of cirrus in the upper

left are over the Atlas Mountains. At the right is the Hamada du Dra, a plateau underlain by the Tindouf syncline. Discordant geologic structures on each side of the Atlantic are often cited to support the theory of con- tinental drift, but this photo of Morocco and Spanish Sahara shows concordance to the African shore.

GEMINI IX JUNE 6, 1966 S66-38408

43

This is part of the area shown in the photo on the pre- ceding page. At the left is the Hamada du Dra's western end; in the center is the south limb of the Tindouf syncline. These are Paleozoic (chiefly Devonian) sedi- mentary rocks that have been folded, tilted, and eroded. The broad desert at the right is the Dorsale Reguibat.

It is a large eroded area of Precambrian rock in Span- ish Sahara and Mauritania. The deflection of the Tin- douf syncline is apparent here, but the reasons for it are not clear. A major wrench fault may pass through the area in the foreground and be partly responsible for this deflection.

GEMINI IX JUNE 6, 1966 S66-38409

44

The Atlas Mountains extend southwest of Gibraltar to Cap Rhir, at the top in this photo. The clouds near it are over a major tectonic boundary, the south-Atlas line coincident with the Agadir fault. This fault geologically separates Mediterranean Africa from the bulk of the continent. The Atlas Mountains were formed in the

Tertiary age with the Alps, Zagros, Caucasus, Himal- ayas, and others on the site of the former Tethys geo- syncline. The contorted ridges at right are eroded rem- nants of older (Paleozoic) structures. Air flowing past Cap Rhir from the northeast may have caused the eddy- like pattern offshore.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 866-54764

45

The bright Hnes across this photo are sand dunes of the Erg Iguidi (an erg is a sand-covered part of the desert) in western Algeria. They parallel the dominant north- east trade winds and are formed by reworking of allu- vial sands. The bands at the left are the topographic ex- pression of Paleozoic sedimentary rocks in the south limb

of Sebkha de Tindouf. The black areas above the dunes are rhyolite intiusions of El Eglab, a Precambrian massif composed chiefly of igneous and metamorphic rocks. Photos taken of this part of Africa during a Mercury flight in 1961 have increased scientific knowledge of the area.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63155

46

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This picture of the Oued Saoura, a wadi in western Algeria, was taken through a longer focal length lens than the photo that precedes it. This area is usually dry and a source of sand for long dunes, but at the top you see an ephemeral lake that was produced by runoff from the Atlas Mountains northwest of this region. The

desert absorbs water before it can flow much farther south. The bedrock structure resembles that of the At- las Mountains, but is considerably older and is perpen- dicular to the northeasterly Atlas trend. It consists of sedimentary rocks with minor volcanics that were fold- ed in the Paleozoic era.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 5, 1965 S65-63830

47

The Erg Iguidi dunes rule the foreground, and a dust- storm farther east whitens the top of this photo. The dark area at the right is the Eglab Massif. It is one of northern Africa's three major Precambrian highlands (the others are the Ahaggar and the Tibesti). These massifs were uplifted and erosion removed whatever

Paleozoic or Mesozoic rocks had been deposited on them. Volcanic activity often accompanies such uplifts. Interpreters of earlier photos such as this believe that the dark blotches at the lower right may be rhyolite intiTisions, with lighter toned microgranite aureoles.

GEMINI IX JUNE 6, 1966 S66-3S413

48

Centered here you see a small dune field resembling a cluster of tents. This photo was taken over central Al- geria and shows the southern edge of the Plateau du Tademait, which extends more than 600 miles from the Dhar Adrar to the Libyan border. Its easternmost part is called the Hamada de Tinrhert. The plateau is under-

lain by Cretaceous limestone. This dark rock has been moderately deformed by basin-and-swell movement ac- companied by faulting. The long, straight watercourses that locally cut the plateau probably follow faults. Wind erosion of sedimentaiy strata produced the closed basins in the left foresrround.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 7, 1965 S65-63784

49

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Earth presented this colorful view when the astronaut- photographer looked down on the central Tassili-n- Ajjer, at the junction of Algeria, Niger, and Libya. The broaa, brushlike streaks across the photo appear to be incipient wind-erosion features, and the prominent curv- ing cuesta at the top is the western border of the Marzuq

Sand Sea. Overlapping pictures of this area, taken from spacecraft, are increasing knowledge of wind-erosion phenomena. The physiography of this area reflects the prevailing basin-and-swell geologic structure of this part of northwest Afiica.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54773

50

This photo includes both the area shown on the facing page and the Mediterranean's southern shore. The Gulf of Sirte is under the cumuliform clouds in the upper left, Egypt is on the far horizon, and the Tassili-n-Ajjer in Algeria is in the foreground. The yellowish circular area in the center is the Marzuq Sand Sea. The dark

spot between it and the gulf is Al HaiTJj al Aswad, a 200- by 100-mile Quaternaiy volcanic field. Few geolo- gists outside of Africa are familiar with this impressive field because such a thinly populated area has long been difficult to visit. This picture clearly shows the basin- and-swell tectonic structure.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1965 S66-54525

51

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This view is along the southeastern end of the Tassili- n-Ajjer in eastern Algeria. The Marzuq Sand Sea of Libya is in the upper left corner. The black formless feature in the lower center is the Telut, a large Quater- nary basalt field. Its linear features extend toward the upper right and are probably the reflection of structure

in the metaniorphic rocks of the Ahaggar Massif. The ridges cutting across this structure nearly at right angles are products of erosion and indicate the direction of the prevailing winds. The rocks at the lower right consti- tute the edge of the Ahaggar Massif and probably are Precambrian.

GEMINI IX JUNE 6, 1966 S66-38418

52

This photo was taken as the spacecraft approached the southern slope of the Ahaggar Massif in southern Al- geria. The Ahaggar is a rugged mass of Archean and Paleozoic rock that rises high above the Sahara. One of its peaks is partly visible in the upper right corner of

the picture. A small outpost called Tamanrasset is just below the spacecraft. The light area in the foreground is part of the sandy wasteland known as the Tanezrouft, or "Land of Thirst," south and west of the mountain massif.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63157

53

The Ai'r mountain range in the north-central part of Niger, Africa, is an outHer of the Ahaggar, and is un- derlain by Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks. The big, dark, roughly circular areas so prominent in this picture of the range are plateaus of resistant masses of granite, intruded as ring complexes. The curved.

fracturelike feature cutting the plateau at the right is shown on an unpublished map by R. Black and others as a gabbroic ring dike. A crater in the lower left is probably a volcanic feature associated with Quatemarv' massifs. Niger is in a part of the Sahara where rain may evaporate before reaching the surface.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63158

54

Mali and Niger, south of Algeria, have no seacoast. The Niger River flows through them on its way to the Gulf of Guinea, and this photo shows it in central Mali. The long dart above and to the right of the striated area is Lac Faguibine. The city of Timbuktu, which Christians formerly were forbidden to enter, is between

the lake and the river. The dark linear pattern south of the river is the lesult of flooding of stabilized sand dunes. El Djouf Desert at the upper right is still one of the least known parts of the Sahara. A cuesta separates this sandy desert from the Aouker region to the west.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 ,S65-63247

55

Parts of several African countries are in the foreground, and Mali and northwest Niger are in the background of this view. The area shown includes northwest Nigeria, southwest Niger, northern Dahomey, eastern Upper Volta, and northern Togo. This part of the world was not explored in detail by Europeans until many years

after America was discovered. The remarkably straight lines of cirrus-cloud tufts are oriented east-west over Nigeria, although their filamentlike structures are near- ly perpendicular to this direction. The filaments in the lower left comer of the picture extend for distances up to 30 or 40 miles.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63240

56

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Cumulonimbi of various sizes dominate the center of this view of the northern part of the Central African Republic and the southern part of Chad. Both nations are landlocked, and the rainfall in this region is pro- duced mainly by thunderstorms. Several smoke plumes emanate from the tropical savannatype forest in the

lower right quadrant of the picture. To the north the desert land gives a reddish hue to the area between the thunderstorms and the horizon. The blue band along the horizon is the lower, more dense region of the at- mosphere called the troposphere.

GEMINI IX JUNE 6, 1966 S66-38445

57

This southwesterly view over Lake Chad shows the sands of the Sahara encroaching on it. Chad is in the middle of Africa between the desert and the Sudan grassland. The lake is much smaller now than when Europeans first saw it. Progressive desiccation has left only a remnant of what was an extensive lake system in

recent geologic times. Lac Fitri, in the upper left, is on- ly about 20 feet higher than Chad. The Chari River, at the upper right, drains a large basin ringed by the Mbang, Chaine des Mongos, and Jabal Marrah Moun- tains. Isolated, water-filled depressions can be seen be- tween many of the sand dimes.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 17, 1966 S65-63969

58

This northwesterly view includes most of Lake Chad. Four countries — Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad — share its shores. In early June when this photo was taken, the lake was shrinking as the flood waters from December and January rains evaporated. The sub- merged dunes show how it becomes progressively small-

er as the desert robs it of water. Its principal affluent, the Chari River system, flows northward to enter the lake below the spacecraft. The only other affluent of significant size is the Yobe River, visible here at the left, which drains a small basin in Nigeria. Few roads lead one to its shores.

GEMINI IX JUNE 6, 1966 S66-38444

59

These cellular clouds were photographed over Camer- oon and the Central African Republic. The light areas in the center of these large cells show where they are thickest. They are from 5 to 15 miles wide. The air is rising in the center of these cells and descending around the edges. They are in a slightly unstable layer about

2 to 3 miles high. Such cells have been seen more often over the oceans and at lower levels. The ratios between the width and the thickness of these cells are much greater than those found when such phenomena are pro- duced in laboratory studies. Vegetation and the humid tropical atmosphere obscure the land's features here.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63236

60

Africa's northern desert meets the continent's jungles in eastern Chad near the Sudan border. The transition zone is either wooded steppe or savanna in which the vegetation is mainly grass between scattered trees. This probably accounts for the darker hue in the foreground of this photo, which includes a large part of Chad.

Some clearing and farming of the land, as well as the increasing density of natural vegetation, may have con- tributed to the pattern visible here. The area is chiefly Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks and the circular structure in the upper center may be a ring dike or some similar intrusion.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 17, 1965 S65-63963

61

This and the next photo are overlapping views of the mountains in western Sudan. Here one sees the north- ern end of the Jabal Marrah range on the Darfur pla- teau. These volcanic mountains form the divide be- tween the area around Lake Chad and the Nile Basin. In the lower left here, Jebel Gurgei rises 7864 feet. The

town of Kutum is on a wadi near it and the provincial capital, El Fasher, is 50 miles southeast of Kutum. Su- dan is Africa's largest country, and its boundaries touch Libya, Chad, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Republic.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63159

62

This second view of western Sudan shows the southern end of the mountains there. The volcanic crater of Jebel Marra, in the center of this picture, is at an ele- vation of more than 10 000 feet and contains two lakes, known as the Deriba Lakes. The town of Nyala is lo- cated along the prominent stream that can be seen flow-

ing west at the left side of the picture. The clouds in the lower right are high cirrus. These mountains stand be- tween the area depicted in this section of the book and the photographs of the countries around the Nile that are presented in the next section.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 865-63160

63

This photo was taken over the Congo on an approach to northeastern Africa from its equatorial area. The clouds at the top show thunderstorm activity near Stan- ley Pool, the lake in the lower center. This area is main- ly a broad plateau, from which water drops 900 feet in 215 miles, and the Congo River's course can be traced

here for about 100 miles. Stanley Pool is about 20 miles long and contains a low marshy area called He Mbamou. Upriver to the left, steep-faced hills confine the stream to a width of 1 or 2 miles. Brazzaville is on one bank and Kinshasa on the other at the right end of the pool.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13, 1965 S65-64022

64

Part IV. Northeast Africa

INo other river has been as intently studied for as many centuries as the Nile, but neither its source nor the reason for its floods was discovered until this century. The Nile drains nearly 1 300 000 square miles of Africa, and Aristotle thought that its waters came from the Silver Mountains — that were later called the Mountains of the Moon. Gemini photographs now enable one to see vast stretches of the Nile at a glance.

They also show the whole of the 1450-mile-long Red Sea. At this sea's north- ern end, the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba are separated by the Sinai Pen- insula. The Bible describes a parting of the waters thereabouts for the children of Israel on their return from Egypt to the Holy Land.

The Red Sea occupies a huge crustal rift in the continental shield and its swampy shores end abruptly in high tableland. Wind erosion has created distinc- tive features in the terrain there that are not recorded even in recent maps, but that can be seen clearly in the Gemini pictures.

The currents in the waters around the Arabian Peninsula are complex. Large numbers of pelagic fish have long been found in the Gulf of Aden on the southern coastline, and may be confined in certain areas by the ocean currents. Photographs such as those in this section may be helpful to evaluators of both the inland and marine resources of this part of the world.

65

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The contrast between western Egypt and the Nile Val- ley is sharp in this photo. Libya is in the foreground, and the Red Sea is above the river near the horizon. The large elliptical feature in the upper center is the Gilf Kibir Plateau. Gently dipping sandstones underlie it and there is a V-shaped escarpment to the left. The

larger of two dark circles below the Gilf Kibir is the Jebel Uwaynat, which is bisected by the border between Libya and Egypt. These jebels were formed by erosion and are said to consist of Precambrian rocks with aeger- ine syenites and granites dominant. The desert here gets less than 2 inches of rain annually.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 866-54529

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This is the eastern end of the Mediterranean. The Nile River and its deUa dominate the left half of the view; the right half includes Israel, Lebanon, and parts of Cyprus, Jordan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Iraq, and Turkey. The Suez Canal is in the lower center, and the Gulf of Suez in the foreground. The narrow body of

water on the right edge is the Dead Sea. The smaller waterbody in the fault extending northward from the Dead Sea is the Sea of Galilee. A lake, the Birkat Qarun, is in the dark lower left corner of the picture. A light northerly wind had alined cumuliform clouds over Egypt in parallel rows when this picture was taken.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 8, 1965 S65-63849

67

""This picture, accentuating the blue of the Red Sea separating Eg>'pt from Sinai and Saudi Arabia, was taken while inverted, pointing south and moving side- wise in orbit," Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., report- ed. "The radar transponder pointing toward the Nile River and the wire loop of the tether are on the Agena

which was docked to Gemini XII at this time." The Gulf of Suez at the bottom of the photo extends north- ward from the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aqaba to the left edge. A few cirrus clouds lay east of the Nile, and cumuliform clouds can be seen over the Red Sea and Saudi Arabia at the upper left.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 13, 1966 S66-63481

68

North is at the left in this view of Egypt's Nile Valley. The dark triangle at the left is El Faiyum, a natural depression 148 feet below sea level. It contains the lake, Birkat Qarun, and a large irrigated area. Amenenhet I of the XII Dynasty controlled the level in the lake to attain some control of Nile floods. The pronounced

bend in the river under the antenna has been ascribed to the same major fault system that probably influenced the shape of the Gulf of Suez and the northern Red Sea. The cirrus clouds in the foreground are embedded in southwest winds from Libya and the cumulus clouds at the left are in winds sweeping in from the north.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 13, 1966 S66-63477

69

Jetstream cirrus clouds extended across the Red Sea and the Nile Valley when this high oblique view to the south- east was filmed. These clouds are so named because they occur near the strong core of the upper westerly wind, the Jetstream, at altitudes bfetween 35 000 and 45 000 feet. This photo also shows important lithologic

and structural features trending toward the southeast. Tertiary sediments underlie most of the area, but Pre- cambiian igneous and metamorphic rocks comprise most of the Sinai Peninsula and surround the Gulf of Suez. Farms darken the valley in which the Nile flows northward through Egypt from Sudan.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 15, 1966 S66-63530

70

This photo of the Red Sea, looking south, was taken from the same spacecraft but on a later revolution than the preceding one. It shows the cirrus cloud bands still over the region. They are parallel to the upper wind and hence indicate its direction. Saudi Arabia is at the left, and Egypt at the right. Sun glitter brightened the

water of the sea in the lower right. The Red Sea was so named because occasionally a free-floating form of microscopic algae "blooms" so profusely that it reddens the water. Although this sea became a commercial artery when the Suez Canal was built a centui7 ago, most of the ports along it are small communities.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 15, 1966 S66-63081

71

Only a few cumulifomi clouds covered the northern end of the Red Sea between Egypt and Saudi Arabia the morning this photo was taken. The Nile can be seen in the lower left. The spacecraft transponder points to the tip of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Dead Sea in the upper left corner. The dark Pre-

canibrian rocks on the far shore of the sea in this view are part of the Arabian-Nubian Massif. An Nafud, a large sand desert, is in the upper right. This photo shows distinct dune trends that are alined in the dominant di- rection of the wind.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54664

72

At most points the Red Sea is less than 200 miles wide. This is a closer view of part of the Arabian shore seen on the preceding page. This photo shows the coast of Saudi Arabia between Duba and Ras Bariji. The dark massif towering above the blue water is a complex of Precambrian igneous and metamorphic rocks that is

parted by graben faulting below the Red Sea. The black, crablike feature at the far right is a Tertiary- Quaternary lava flow. The lightly colored sediments are stream deposits of alluvium and related surficial de- posits of Quaternary age. The shadows of the clouds indicate that they were at a great height.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54895

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This is a photo of the Red Sea taken from east of it. Yemen and Saudi Arabia are in the foreground; Ethi- opia, Sudan, and the United Arab Republic are on the far shore. Oceanographers have found gold, silver, zinc, and copper associated with sediments in a 7000-foot- deep part of the Red Sea northwest of Jiddah, a city

near the shore in the right center. In the depths the water is 56° C and has 10 times normal salinity. Sub- marine eruptions and ancient salt beds probably explain these conditions. Jiddah had a west wind of 15 knots, and Port Sudan, across the sea, a 10-knot southeast wind when this photo was taken.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13, 1965 S65-64006

74

Ethiopia is in the upper left and the Arabian Peninsula in the foreground of this photo taken east of the Red Sea. The dark area in Ethiopia is the Danakil Depres- sion, a below-sea-level part of the Great Rift Valley. Islands and reefs are visible off R'as Isa, the cape on the near shore. Dark areas in the lower left are volcanic

rock. The prominent fault in the lower right is in Ye- men. It brings granitic rocks into contact with Jurassic sediments of the Amran Series in the light central part of the photo's lower half. There are batholiths of Meso- zoic or Cenozoic age in the Amran Series which darken parts of the picture.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13, 1965 S65-64007

75

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For this view of the Nubian Desert east of the Nile, the camera was pointed east from over southern Egypt and Sudan. The Red Sea waters at the top are in the north- ern part of the Great Rift Valley of Africa, which has been shown to be a graben or downfaiilted block. The dark areas bordering it are Precambrian igneous and

metamorphic rocks. The dark linear depression at the right is north of Kassala, Sudan, and is undoubtedly a subsidiary structure related to the main Rift Valley faulting. Thin cirrus filaments hide the nearby desert and several cumiilonimbi rise amid the cumulus clouds at the right.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54779

76

Before flowing north into Egypt, the Nile curves south- ward in northern Sudan. To the right of the antenna rod, where the river is relatively straight and there are no clouds, is its third cataract. Most of the area in the foreground is underlain by Nubian sandstone. Circular features here are similar to those of the Jebel Uwaynat.

Vegetation increases from left to right as the color of the landscape darkens. To the east the main structural features of the Nubian Ramp, the Precambrian high- lands bordering the Red Sea, are visible. Some cumuli- form and cirriform clouds are shown drifting over the desert on both sides of the Red Sea.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54531

77

This and the next three pictures were taken only min- utes apart from altitudes of more than 300 miles. Lake Tana in Ethiopia is in the lower right. Beyond is nearly the whole southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. The bare orange expanse there is the "Empty Quarter" of Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Showers apparently were fall-

ing on the lava-covered Abyssinian plateau from the clouds in the foreground. This plateau's average eleva- tion is more than 6000 feet. Dark areas below the cum- ulus clouds along the Red Sea's far shore are part of the Arabian shield, which the Red Sea rift separates from the African shield.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54533

78

The Red Sea is at the left. From it the Gulf of Aden extends to the Indian Ocean on the horizon. Between the spacecraft and the V-shaped Tadjoura Gulf in the lower center of this photo is Lake Abbe. The boundary between Ethiopia and the Somali Republic crosses that lake. Yemen occupies the left part of the Arabian Pen-

insula shown here, and Aden is along the shore to the east. Major structural lineaments of the Arabian shield, and the dendritic wadi system of the Hadramawt Pla- teau, can be observed in this and the next picture. The spacecraft was ascending when this and the next photo were taken from an altitude of more than 350 miles.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54536

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The resolution of this photo, showing some of the same area as the preceding two, is greater because the view is more nearly vertical. In the upper center the gently dip- ping Paleozoic and Mesozoic sediments that form the arcuate central interior homocline of the Arabian Pen- insula can be seen emerging from below Ar Rab al

Khali. In September the Red Sea's warm waters pour into the Gulf of Aden over the sill of the strait you see beneath the spacecraft's transponder. A portion of that flow, about 150 miles long and 75 miles wide, can be detected by a difference in the water's hues, caused by its relative roughness.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54537

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The Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden are in a geologically important area. The Gemini photos show several major structural lineaments which traverse Precambrian and Cretaceous rocks in this area. The view includes the bi- furcation of the Great African Rift valley — to the east under the Gulf of Aden and to the southwest under

Africa to form the Abyssinian rift. The Afar depression in Africa, in the foreground, consists largely of volcanic rocks. It appeared to be raining on Ethiopia's highlands when this series of pictures was taken; air temperatures reached 100° F along the Red Sea coast 3 hours later.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 866-54783

81

Now our view is to the east across the dry lands of the horn of Africa toward the Gulf of Aden. The Indian Ocean shore between Eil and Garad is visible in the upper left. The cumulus-cloud streets shown here are parallel to the southwest wind and the clear swath is over the valley of the Nogal River which flows across

the Somali Republic. A narrow Precambrian ridge ex- tends eastward from the bottom of the photo and rough- ly parallels the coast of the Gulf of Aden in the fore- ground. The dark areas on the right represent Mesozoic deposits.

GEMINI IX JUNE 6, 1966 S66-38424

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Ethiopia is dotted by large lakes south of Addis Ababa. They are in the northern part of the Great African Rift valleys that extend from Syria to South Africa, and are thought to be graben; i.e., large blocks of the crust that have been downdropped along fractures. The parallel lines northeast of Zeway, the northernmost dark lake

here, are indications of these fractures. The three center lakes are Shala (left), Hora Abyata (middle), and Langana (right). Cumulus clouds partially hide Awusa lake at the lower left. The sharp brown marks at the upper right and a curlicue on Langana's shore are defects in the photographic film.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63I62

83

Lake Tana in northwestern Ethiopia is the source of the Blue Nile. It is on a plateau more than 6000 feet above sea level, and its water flows to the southeast (lower right) before curving west to irrigate farms in Sudan and Egypt. Monasteries on the islands in Lake Tana date back to the 14th century. Extensive lava flows of

late Mesozoic or Cenozoic age overlay the plateau. The lineament left and above the lake may be the expression of a fault, suggesting that the lake is of tectonic origin. Mountains rise nearly 13 000 feet in the region near the pancake-shaped cumulus clouds to the right of the lake.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13, 1965 S65-64014

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This photograph shows the Sun brilliantly reflected in the immense swamp called As Sudd through which the White Nile flows in Sudan. During Mid-Tertiary time the Sudd region was an enclosed drainage basin. Then tilting of the east African plateau during Pleistocene time chanared the direction of drainasre of Lake Victoria

and additional waters were supplied to the lake here. This lake soon overflowed, draining off most of the water and leaving the swamp which exists today. Smoke from clearing operations on farms is visible at the bot- tom of the picture.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63161

85

Lake Victoria extends southward from the Equator. This is its southern shore in Tanzania, where it has many deep inlets and steep bluffs. The rows of cumulus clouds running northward direct your eye to Speke Gulf in the upper center of the picture. The large island at its entrance, called Ukerewe, rises 650 feet above the

lake water and is densely populated. The town of Mwanza is at the head of the inlet below the gulf. There were thunderstorms northeast of Speke Gulf when the spacecraft passed over this tropical region in December on its wav to the Indian Ocean shore of the continent.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63232

86

Thunderstomis had generated a canopy of cirrus, pen- etrated by turrets from upward currents of air, when the astronauts took this picture of Africa's east coast south of the Equator. The spacecraft was over the northern end of the Mozambique Channel. The view extends from south of Vila do Ibo, Mozambique, to

north of Mtwara, Tanzania. The boundary between the two countries is the Ruvuma River, which can be seen entering the Indian Ocean to the right of the center of this picture. High rocky headlands and steep cliffs on this part of the coast consist of marine sediments, and tiny coral islands stud the sea near the shore.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63228

87

For this photo of eastern Africa, the camera was point- ed west from off its shores. Kenya's coastal lowlands are in the foreground, and Tanzania's famous safari lands are near the horizon. Mount Kilimanjaro is the dark object left of center, flanked by Lake Eyasi on the left and Lake Natron on the right. The clouds suggest

how the mountains disturb air flowing from the south- east. Several isolated cloud patches to the right lay near high peaks ; the one farthest right is around 1 7 050-foot Mount Kenya. Although these volcanic mountains axe close to the Equator, ice fields and glaciers are found on their summits.

GEMINI IX JUNE 6, 1966 S66-38453

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This view is similar to the preceding one, but the coastal strip shown is farther north and is part of the Somali Republic. The Equator crosses this area from the upper left to the lower right. Here the sea-surface temperature in the Somali Current is about 79° F in June, and you

see fewer clouds over the water than over the land. The convective cloudiness covers the coastal lowlands and extends into northeastern Kenya, but over the highlands at the upper left — the region between the Indian Ocean and Lake Victoria — the sky is mostly quite clear.

GEMINI IX JUNE 6, 1966 866-38454

89

Several cloud decks are discernible in this picture of Africa's Indiao Ocean coastline. East-west banding has occurred in the highest deck of cirrostratus, while cumu- lus-cloud streets have been embedded in a southwesterly airflow parallel to the coast at a low level. The camera was pointed northwest and a strip of the coast of the

Somali Republic near Eil is visible in the clear zone at the right. Beyond the cloud field, the mainland has a reddish hue because the landscape is arid here. Eil is on the Baia del Negro at the mouth of the Nogal River, which flows eastward from higher areas inland.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45878

90

South of Ras Hafun and just north of the city of Moga- dishu, the capital of the Somali Republic, this vivid image of the Indian Ocean shore of Africa was record- ed by one of the astronauts. The sand dunes extend in- land and show a typical increase in red coloration as

the distance from the shore becomes greater. The ori- entation of the dunes follows the dominant winds along this portion of the continental shelf along the shore. This strip of the coast is only a few degrees north of the Equator.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13, 1965 S65-64021

91

Near Africa's eastern tip, the Indian Ocean nearly sur- rounds Ras Hafun, as you see in the center of this photo of the coast of the Somali Republic. A narrow strip of land connects it to the continent. Tidal action on river affluents has discolored the water of the bay. The small- er cape at the left is Ras Binnah. It is near the eastern

entrance to the Gulf of Aden. The river running from the lower right corner of the picture is the Uadi Giael; it flows into the sea south of Ras Binnah. Two more pictures of this area follow. They were taken at nearly the same time as this one. Ras Hafun illustrates what geologists call a tombolo.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63130

92

This is a closer view of some of the area shown on the preceding page. Ras Hafun is in the upper left. The river draining into this large bay is the Darror. The Uadi Giael crosses this picture near the center. Cumulus clouds cast shadows on the Earth in the foreground. The

desert here is underlain by Cenozoic marine and con- tinental sedimentary rocks. The ancient Egyptians called this northeastern horn of Africa "the land of aromatics" because in their time, as in ours, Somalia was a princi- pal source of frankincense and myrrh.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63131

93

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This is an even closer view than the previous two of the Somah Republic. At the upper left is the strip of land between the discolored Baia di Hafun and the Indian Ocean. This appears to be a recently emerged coastline. Indications of this are the raised beach terraces, scarps parallel to the coast, and a youthful landscape that is

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 365-63132

only slightly dissected by erosion. The climate is hot and di7. Upwelling of cool water in the sea nearby con- tributes to the region's aridity. This region can be seen again on the next page in a photo taken from a much higher altitude. Ras Hafun is on the right side of the land shown there.

94

This high-altitude, wide-angle photo of the eastern tip of Africa helps one relate features of the Earth shown in other photos that precede and follow this one. The narrow dark outcrops trending approximately parallel to the gulf on the coast of the Somali Republic at the left are exposures of the Precambrian basement com-

plex, overlain and concentrically flanked by Mesozoic rocks. Near the Indian Ocean at the right, Neogene and Quaternaiy deposits lay over Palogene sediments. The cloud streets above the sea show how the winds off the entrance to the Gulf of Aden generally parallel the coastline.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S65-54538

95

Part V. The Indian Ocean and Australia

Vjemini astronauts crisscrossed the 5000 miles of water between Africa and Aus- tralia many times. On most flights die spacecraft passed over Australia at night, which limited the number of photographs obtained of that continent.

The first pictures in this section were taken south of the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, and show some of the many storms that are born and die in that lonely part of the worid. Even though Magellan's men crossed the Indian Ocean to circumnavigate the worid in 1521, European scholars knew very little about what lay beneath its waters until the oceanographers began to probe them late in the 19th century.

Socotra, the first island pictured in this section, is a continental island like Ceylon. But the next islands shown are volcanic, and the Chagos and Maldive Archipelagos mark the site of a great submarine mountain range that extends far south of the tip of India.

When the spacecraft approached Australia, the astronauts could look down on one of the stations tracking them. Their photographs show the arid lands of West- ern Australia, and that continent's northern coast, where the Timor and Arafura Seas link the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.

Photos of India and other portions of southern Asia are in the next section of this volume ; many of them also show vast stretches of the Indian Ocean.

97

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Little is known about the geology of Socotra, an island about 75 miles long in the Indian Ocean south of Aden and Muscat and Oman. A British party resurveyed it a few years ago for the first time in more than a century. The surf often makes landing difficult, but it was mod- erate when this photo was taken and shows as a mere

white line. The light, northerly winds typified those of the early monsoon season. The tiny islands above Soco- tra here are The Brothers, and the slender one in the Sun's glitter at the top is 'Abd Al Kuri. The Brothers lie on an insular shelf around Socotra, but the channel is deep between them and 'Abd Al Kuri.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13, 1965 S65-64013

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This panoramic oblique view from over the Indian Ocean embraces nearly the whole Arabian Sea. The horn of Africa and parts of Dhufar, and Muscat and Oman are at the left. On the right the view extends past Pakistan, and well down the coast of India. The low-level wind was southwest in the foreground and

northwest off India south of the Gulf of Cambay. The Gulf of Oman is near the upper left. South of it one can see the archlike structure of the Oman Range, and to the north the general trend of the Makran range in Iran is visible. The relationship between these inoun- tains has long been an enisma.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966

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In this view to the east over the Indian Ocean off the coast of the Somali Republic, one sees long rows of cumulus clouds. Some small rows appear to be en- hanced, others have been suppressed, and the larger cloud elements form other rows at an angle of approx- imately 30° to them. A broad line runs from the top

center to the lower right where the clouds have been suppressed. The mechanisms that produce such phe- nomena in the atmosphere are poorly understood. Wind shear, atmospheric stability, and sea-surface tempera- ture may all enter into the creation of patterns such as these. The next photo was taken much farther south.

GEMINI IX JUNE 6, 1966 S66-38429

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The Mayotte Archipelago is in the Mozambique Chan- nel between Africa and the Malagasy Republic. This is a westward view of the Comoro Islands there. At the lower left is Mayotte, surrounded by an extensive, dan- gerous coral reef. In the center is Anjouan, which has a central peak 5170 feet high. Moheli, directly above

it, is the smallest of these volcanic islands. Grande Co- more is at the upper right, but covered by cumulus congestus clouds. The varied alinement of cumulus in- dicates a complex low-level wind pattern. A small cloud eddy induced by the light flow of air past the islands can be seen near the top of the picture.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 365-63227

101

Shadows and cui-ving lines of cumulus clouds broke the Sun's glitter on the Indian Ocean between the Malagasy Republic and the Mascarene Islands farther east. The curvature of the rows of cumulus may have resulted from the eddy effect generated by air flowing past mountainous islands. The island of Reunion is barely

visible in the lower left. The coastline of the Malagasy Republic is near the horizon where the flattened tops of thunderstorms rise high into the atmosphere. Several bands of cirrus clouds are to the left of the Sun glitter. The reddish image at the top was caused by reflections within the camera.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63283

102

Several hundred miles east of the Malagasy Republic, the camera recorded this view of the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean. Mauritius, in the center, is a roughly oval island composed of basalt and surrounded by coral. Uninhabited when discovered in the 1500's, its population now exceeds 500 000. The rows of cumu-

lus clouds over it are alined east-west. At the left, south of the island, is an outstanding example of the classic open convective cloud cell. Reunion, the island in the upper center, is dominated by two volcanic masses, the largest of which, Piton des Neiges, rises 10 069 feet.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 365-63284

103

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This and the next two photos of clouds were taken far east of Africa, almost directly south of the tip of India. The clouds in this photograph belonged to a weak trop- ical vortex that was visible near 13° S and 80° E. You can see several decks of clouds in it, from high-level

cirrus to low-level cumulus, arranged in distinct lines. Tropical storms are frequently spawned on both sides of the Equator in this lonely part of the Indian Ocean. Some of these storms grow to be vigorous, destructive typhoons; others remain weak, tropical circulations.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 365-63280

104

This picture overlaps the one on the preceding page and includes the same clouds along its left edge that were shown in the photo there. This is an eastward look at the southern edge of a tropical vortex seen over the waters of the southern Indian Ocean. The alinement at different altitudes shows the changes in the wind di-

rection with height. Of particular interest here is the apparent alinement of the lower clouds. This suggests that there was a diverging northeasterly flow, but be- cause such a flow is not likely so near to storms, the apparent alinement may have resulted from the per- spective of the photograph.

GEMINI Vr DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63279

105

This is a nearly vertical view of a part of the area shown in the two preceding photographs of clouds in a tropical vortex over the southern Indian Ocean. The fine stream- ers of cirrus clouds in the center are being blown in a direction peri>endicular to the rows of low cumulus

clouds. A canopy of cirrus obscures the lower levels at the left. Many of these storms originate over the trop- ical seas west of Sumatra, and some of them travel for several weeks before striking land or curving into high- er, colder latitudes to fade away.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63278

106

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All scales of convective clouds can be seen near the Chagos Archipelago. The clear area at the lower right was over the Egmont Islands. The cirrus anvil tops of several cumulonimbi in the Sun-glitter area project toward the southwest. Small cumulus-cloud streets in the boundary layer are alined with the southeast trade

winds. The large area of cirrus and cirrostratus in the foreground is a small part of a massive cloud volume of convective activity. Weather-satellite photos have re- vealed similar masses. Their lifetime is 1 or 2 days and their role in the circulation of the equatorial atmos- phere is not well understood yet.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 566-45846

107

The Chagos Archipelago, about 250 miles south of the Maldive Archipelago, consists of five main coral atolls called the Oil Islands. Two of them, Egmont and Three Brothers, can be glimpsed between the clouds in the foreground. The small cumulus clouds there are alined with southeast trade winds at the surface, while in the

background a vast area of cumulus clouds is organized in various patterns. These islands are in the equatorial counter current; fish are plentiful, and green turtles thrive on their shores. The largest atoll in this group, Diego Garcia, totals only 1 1 square miles and had only 650 local residents in 1960.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45848

108

Five atolls of the Maldive Islands, a group north of the Chagos Archipelago, are in the foreground here. From the right edge they are Nilandu, Kolumadulu, Haddum- mati, Suvadiva, and Addu. The Equator is between Suvadiva and Addu. Winds from different directions are warping the towering cumulus clouds west of Addu

at the lower left. At low levels the trade wind bends the towers toward the northwest; at an intermediate level they are being bent to the southwest ; and at high levels, plumes containing ice crystals are being carried west- ward. The convection that dominates a large area near the horizon is producing more cirrus clouds.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45853

109

Suvadiva is the large atoll here, Addu Atoll is below it, and the small island and reef of Fua Mulaku Island is between them. Within the lagoon of Suvadiva, the white spots are cumulus clouds, and the dark ones are coral knolls typical of Pacific and Indian Ocean atoll lagoons. The white, pearllike fringe on the shores of

both Suvadiva and Addu is the reflectance from strong surf produced as waves approach from the south. The prominent large white cumulonimbus in the foreground had reached the upper levels of the atmosphere, and the tops of these clouds were being blown to the southwest when this picture was taken.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45851

110

This picture shows a thin veil of cirrus clouds being swept along by high-altitude east winds over the Indian Ocean south of Ceylon. The camera was pointed west, and the Maldive Islands are near the horizon, but too small and far away to be seen. Thunderstorms spew out

long cirrus streamers which may extend for hundreds of miles in this tropical region. A different, lower level wind regime had alined the cumulus clouds in the fore- ground in a north-south line at the time this picture was taken.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 366-45859

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Only about 200 of the 2000 small Maldive Islands south- west of Ceylofi are inhabited. They are grouped in 12 atolls. Suvadiva Atoll is near the center of this early- morning photo, for which the low Sun brightened the sides of high towering cumulus clouds. The cirriform clouds were in thinner, less dense layers and appear

darker. The Maldive Islands are coral caps on the high, central portions of a long, submerged, partly granitic ridge. It begins at the approximate latitude of Bombay and extends southward along the west coast of India. This Chagos-Laccadive Plateau joins the Mid-Oceanic (Carlsberg) Ridge near the Chagos Archipelago.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 S66-62974

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These stratocumulus clouds seen over the southeastern Indian Ocean looked like floating fields of ice, but the orbits of the Gemini flights kept them well away from the polar regions of the Earth. Similar cloud forms fre- quently are seen off the coasts of California and Peru

where the waters of the Pacific are relatively cool. Some cellular patterns are discernible in this stratocumulus, indicating that a Benard cell-type circulation might be found in the lower atmosphere. A few cirrus clouds al- so are scattered throughout the photo.

GEMINI IX JUlVE 6, 1966 S66-38440

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A late-afternoon Sun spread dark shadows of cumuli- form clouds over Western Australia the day that this and the next photo were taken. The Ashburton River valley is in the upper left, and the Indian Ocean shore in the lower right. The large light area near the sea is Lake McLeod, a dry salt lake (visible again in the low-

er left corner of the next photo). Lake McLeod is a short distance south of the Tropic of Capricorn, and the town called Winning Pool is north of it. Many na- tions helped to assure the safety of the American as- tronauts; Australia contributed to the cost of operating a tracking station on its western coast.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63135

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Shark Bay and Denham Sound dominate the center of this view of Australia's westernmost shore. The Carnar- von Tracking Station, a part of the NASA worldwide network used to track manned space flights, is near the mouth of the Gascoyne River in the lower left corner of the picture. The cumulus and cumulus congestus in

the upper half of the photo are over the higher parts of the mainland between this shore and Australia's great deserts. In the central foreground are Dorre Island and Bernier Island. The city of Wooramel is on the left side of the large bay in which the topography below the shal- low water is discernible.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 365-63136

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This is a wide-angle photo of Australia's northwestern coast with Eighty Mile Beach in the foreground. In- land is the Great Sandy Desert; the Lake Mackay is near the center of the right edge. In the upper left, parts of Timor are visible despite dense clouds such as persist over Indonesia much of the year. The Gulf of Carpen-

taria is near the horizon on the right. Cumulus-cloud patterns cover hilly regions below it. A vast Precam- brian shield extends across Australia from Perth to the Gulf of Carpentaria. The area is a broad complex of pillow lavas, tuffs, and greenstones, flanked by me- tasediments, all of which are intruded bv granites.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54700

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In this view of Australia's Eighty Mile Beach, three coral reefs stand out at the left below a fine-structured network of cumulus clouds over the sea. The shore here shows the simple contours and sand beaches of a mature coast. In the desert inland, long linear dunes cover a basin of Permian rocks. The V-shaped bay in the upper

center is King Sound, filled with muddy, silty water by the Fitzroy River. At Tampi Point, above it, much iron has been mined from Precambrian granites and pegma- tites. Collier Bay, Brunswick Bay, Prince Frederick Har- bor, and York Sound are indentations in the coastline at the top of this photo.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 866-54918

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Here is Australia's Northern Territory from Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, in the upper left, east to Cape York. On the far side of the gulf are Bathurst and Melville Islands, which shield Darwin from the Timor Sea. The prominent river entering the gulf is the Ord. The King Leopold ranges curve across the lower part of this pho-

tograph. Gregory Lake is in the lower center. The plain area in the upper center is Arnhem Land, a plateau capped by Jurassic shale and sandstone, with important mineralization of granodiorites and pegmatites around Pine Creek on its western end. The next picture is a more nearly vertical view of this area.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54925

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This picture overlaps the preceding one. Cold ocean currents sweep along Australia's coast here and through the straits to the Timor Sea. Winds from the Great Sandy Desert were blowing turbid water away from the shore when this picture was taken. The light-blue areas near the center, left of King Sound and Joseph Bona-

parte Gulf, are shoal waters around islands and archi- pelagos. The coastline here is one of submergence, with tides of 15 to 30 feet, and up to 46 feet in King Sound. In the right center, the Margaret River joins the Fitz- roy River. The King Leopold Ranges cross the upper right center of the picture.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54924

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Part VI. Southern Asia

(jEMiNi XI rose farther above the Earth's surface on September 14, 1966, than men ever had gone before. Astronauts Charles Conrad, Jr., and Richard F. Gor- don, Jr., first realized how high they were when the whole subcontinent of India came into view. Commander Conrad was so impressed by "how small the world is" that the sight always will be one of his sharpest memories of the flight.

When photographed from an altitude of more than 400 miles, India's whole coast was nearly cloudless. A small low-pressure system lay in the north, the wind was toward the shore on all coasts, and there for India's people it was a pleasant sea breeze. The air temperature along the coast was about 80° F and only from 7° to 10° higher in the interior.

Man's newly acquired ability to "see" such a system in toto can be very helpful in quantitative studies of his environment. Not only can the seaward extent of the ocean breezes be measured, but the sea-surface wind drift, areas of potential up- welling, and convergences can be plotted for an entire coast. Were such a view available daily, the value to fisheries, shipping, and meteorology would be incal- culable.

Some of the pictures in this volume were taken at the request of the U.S. Navy Oceanographic Office and the U.S. Geological Survey. They contain information that is frequently lost when photos taken from aircraft are combined to show large areas.

121

You are looking directly down now on 100 000 square miles of the Arabian Peninsula's Hadramawt Plateau. The dark areas near the Gulf of Aden in the upper left are igneous and metamorphic rock including Quater- nary volcanics, and the light area is a sand-dune field. The Hadramawt Plateau's sedimentary rocks dip gently

to the north, and stream piracy is evident in the fore- ground. Several tributaries of the immense wadi in the lower right have lost their headwaters to the stream in the center. This dendritic drainage pattern is typical of a morphologically youthful stage of erosion on nearly flat strata.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13, 1965 S65-64010

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This view spans about 150 miles of the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and partially overlafK the preceding picture. The Hadramawt Plateau is in the foreground and the Gulf of Aden in the upper part of the photo. The drainage is partly dendritic, but shows a trellis pattern near the shore, which may have resulted

from the dip of strata or from faulting. The dark areas near the water are Quaternary volcanics of the Aden Volcanic Series. Five old lagoons have been filled and their inlets closed by depositions that contrast with the sharp coastal features of the erosional headlands. This area is immediately east of Al Mukalla.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13, 1965 S65-64011

123

The strait between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman is directly above the antenna in this photo, taken from an altitude of about 300 miles. Near the horizon the folded mountain systems forming the Zagros-Makran Ranges of Iran and West Pakistan can be seen, as well as the great depression containing the Baluchistan Des-

ert, Siah Reg, of northern Pakistan and southern Afghan- istan. Over the Empty Quarter in the foreground, cumu- liform clouds were widely dispersed. Along the shore of the Gulf of Oman they were more prevalent in a sea- breeze circulation. Beyond the Arabian Sea, India is faintly visible at the far right.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54669

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This photo shows the whole Gulf of Oman. The south- eastern end of the Persian Gulf is in the foreground and the Arabian Sea can be seen at the top. The large island at the lower left is called Qeshm, and the light area above the spacecraft nose is the Trucial Coast. In the distance, northeasterly winds can be seen carrying dust

out over the Gulf of Oman for 150 miles near the bor- der between Iran and West Pakistan. This and the next photo are of considerable geological interest because of the clarity with which they show the Strait of Hormuz. In a geological sense, this strait separates Africa from Asia.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 13, 1966 S66-63486

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In this view to the east, Iran is at the left and Saudi Arabia at the right. The peninsula that juts into the Strait of Hormuz is the northern end of the Oman Range on the Arabian Peninsula. It points to a sharp discordance, called the Oman line, at the left, in the Makran Ranges in Iran. These ranges seem to have

been moved to the south by an immense thrust fault. There are reasons to doubt this, but a considerable dis- location of fold axes is certainly apparent, and the con- cept is of interest because of the insight regarding the nature of the Oman line that geologists may gain from high-altitude photography.

GEMINr XII NOVEMBER 15, 1966 S66-63082

126

This view of the Zagros Mountains in Iran and the Persian Gulf shows anticlines generally composed of Cretaceous or Tertiary sedimentary rock cores, sur- rounded by upturned younger strata. The uplift of these mountains began in the Pliocene era and has outstripped erosion thus far. Salt beds have figured in their history

by forming plugs and flowing upward as rheids in many places. Some have penetrated thousands of feet of rock to reach the surface. The dark circular or elliptical masses near the coast at the upper left are salt plugs that are exposed at the surface. They would dissolve soon in a wet climate, but here they survive.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 13, 1966 S66-63483

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This is the front of the Himalaya Mountains in India and Nepal. This is a fascinating area geologically be- cause the Himalayas here are an extremely complex as- sortment of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks, ranging in age from Precambrian to Recent, that have been thrust southward where the Indian Peninsula

begins. The city of Rampur, India, lies near the lower center of this view, and the mountains at the upper right are in Nepal. The rivers, including the Sard at the up- per right, are tributaries of the Ganges, which flows in- to the Bay of Bengal east of Calcutta. The next photo shows the Himalayas from another vantage point.

GEMINI VI DECEMBER 16, 1965 S65-63128

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Mount Everest is about an inch to the right of the cen- ter of the view of the Himalayas from west of Nepal to Bhutan, and 8 more of the world's 12 highest peaks are visible. Over India at the left the air is hazy, and thun- derstorms catch early-morning sunlight south of the mountains. In the clear area at the right edge is the

Brahmaputra River. The central peak of the forked range in the right foreground is Kula Gangri. The Himalayas were formed by thrust faulting along the margin of the central Asia tableland. As they were thrust southward, the cioist folded to form the sub- Himalaya chain in front of the main mountains.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 15, 1966 366-54840

129

Notice the great U-shaped cloudline around India in this photo. Subsiding air in a sea-breeze circulation re- suhed in the suppression of convective clouds off the peninsula's coast for 30 to 50 miles on the west and 120 to 150 miles on the east. The occurrence of polygonal

convection cells of cumulus clouds indicates heating of the air by the water and a lack of winds. Vegetation darkens the mountainous regions of Western and East- ern Ghats, but the reddish soil of southern India can be seen between these ranges.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54677

130

The Coleroon River and other topographic features of the tip of India can be seen here, as well as typical day- time cumulus-cloud activity, with many cloud elements in long lines parallel to the wdnds. Southern India was included in the synoptic terrain photography experiment because the Indian Upper Mantle Project is focused on

it, and photos such as this show more than mosaics. Be- tween India and Ceylon, at the far right, the sea is so shallow that a small drop in its level would rejoin the two areas. The islands and shoals there are known both as Adam's Bridge and as Rama's Bridge. The next two pictures show more details of Ceylon.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54904

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This picture overlaps the previous one. It includes all of Ceylon, yet the Himalayas, roughly 2300 miles away, are faintly visible on the horizon. Ceylon is 270 miles long. Its people are clustered on the moist southwestern third of the island. Dry areas elsewhere were irrigated and productive 2000 years ago, but later were neglected

until recent times. At the upper right, cirrus clouds can be seen streaming westward toward Ceylon from a con- vective area in the Bay of Bengal. At top center there is another region of cloudiness near Calcutta. It is asso- ciated with a weak depression.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54678

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You are looking south now at the shallow water be- tween Ceylon, on the left, and India, at the right. Palk Bay and Palk Strait are in the center and the Gulf of Mannar at the top of the picture. Rama, the hero of Ramayana, is said to have built a bridge here to take his army from India to Ceylon. A road-railway-ferry

system now crosses this shallow area. The high thin clouds over Ceylon are probably associated with a trop- ical storm in the Bay of Bengal. Ceylon is within 450 miles of the Equator, but oceanic winds temper its hot, humid climate. At the lower right, the Coleroon River at Thanjaviir is visible.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 11, 1965 365-63743

133

About 90 minutes after the Gemini XI photos on pre- ceding pages were taken, the spacecraft crossed the In- dian Ocean again and obtained this view. In it one can see how the clouds developed and changed in the brief time it took the spacecraft to circle the world. India and Ceylon are near the horizon at the left. Cumulus con-

gestus over Ceylon had become cumulonimbi, with elongated, anvillike tops extending nearly 100 miles to the Indian coast, by the time this photo was taken. Over the equatorial Indian Ocean in the foreground, dense cirrus and cirrostratus clouds hid many of the low-level convective clouds.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54544

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Southeastern Ceylon is in the lower left comer of this picture of long fingers of cirrus clouds reaching west across the Bay of Bengal. The thick cirrus near the top of this northeasterly view is emanating from convective storms over the Malay Peninsula. The cloudiness near

the upper center is west of the Nicobar Islands, and is typical of that seen in tropical Southeast Asia. Details discernible in Gemini color pictures such as this have helped the meteorologists who interpret the photographs televised to Earth from unmanned satellites.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54681

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This view eastward across Sumatra shows the great quantities of cirrus produced by cumulonimbus clouds in this equatorial monsoon climate. The intense convec- tive activity, which produces more than 100 inches of rain a year in much of this area, is particularly evident over northern Sumatra in the upper left, and along a

line which cuts across the lower right corner of the pic- ture. In the lower levels the undeveloped cumuli show open cellular patterns in some areas, as well as a sug- gestion of a vortex in the right center of the photo. Monthly mean temperatures average about 80° F at sea level in this part of Indonesia.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54686

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The long shafts of cirrus clouds at the left here trended southwest from northern Borneo. The view is to the northeast and includes many of the Indonesian islands. They are the spice islands that Columbus sought. The clouds above them in this photo were predominantly convective in a moist, unstable atmosphere. Southern

Sumatra is at the left behind the antenna; Java is the long, narrow island in the center, and the Sunda Islands stretch toward the horizon. Borneo is in the upper left corner. Celebes, across the Makassar Strait, is to the risrht of Borneo and well cloaked in clouds.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54691

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This is a view to the northeast from over the Indian Ocean near the Equator. The photo shows several ex- tremely long bands of cirrus clouds lined up northeast- southwest at a time when cumulus clouds were sparse in the lower atmosphere. The dark mass discernible through the thin clouds at the upper left is northern

Sumatra. The islands off its west coast here are Simeu- lue, at the left; Banjak, in the upper center; and Nias, in the right center. Notice how the moist equatorial at- mosphere obscures the eastern lowlands of Sumatra bordering the Strait of Malacca more than it does the central highlands.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 366-45782

139

Off Sumatra's southwestern coast many large volcanic islands, with small ones scattered among them, rise from a submarine platform in the Indian Ocean. They are part of a chain that extends on toward Java and Aus- tralia. Thin cirrus clouds veil the upper part of this view, but Tanahbala, the southernmost of the Batu

group, can be seen at the left, and Siberut, the largest of the Mentawai Group, is near the center. Some of Siber- ut's peaks rise more than 1000 feet. The cumulus-cloud streets at the lower right trend north-south, west of Sibenit. Thick forests cloak many of the islands in this chain and coral reefs have risen around them.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45785

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This photo of the Mentawai Archipelago overlaps the preceding one. Siberut Island is at the left, Sipora Is- land in the center, Utara and Selatan Islands are at the right, and numerous other small islands are includ- ed. Sumatra's west coast along the southern slope of the Barisan Mountains is at the top. The surf was creating

bright lines along the western and southern shores of the islands when this picture was taken, suggesting that an onshore wind was blowing. Cumulus clouds were lined up in a southwest wind over the islands, while cirrus plumes were blowing from the northeast at a high- er level.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45787

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Sumatra sprawls across the Equator south of Bumia and Malaysia. In the middle of this photo, cumulus clouds alined with southeasterly winds rib its central lowlands. The Strait of Malacca is at the right of boomerang- shaped Bengkalis Island. The narrower Pandjung Strait in the upper center separates several large islands from

the mainland. The Siak and Kampar Rivers, flowing north and east from Sumatra's mountains, fill this strait with mud and silt. Thin cirrus clouds shroud forests and jungles on the hot, humid islands. A denser band of cirrus partly conceals a cumulus-cloud line that ex- tends upward at the right.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45791

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This view northward over the Bay of Bengal shows the Irrawaddy River delta in Burma. The Gulf of Martaban in the lower right is 150 miles wide, and some of the river's several mouths are visible left of it. Rice is grown on the alluvial lowlands of this fertile delta. The brown, silt-laden water being discharged into the Andaman

Sea is evidence of denudation upstream that has been estimated to be 1 foot in 400 years. At the left the northern part of the Andaman Islands can be seen. Cumulus streets prevail over the bay and sea, but there are also a few scattered cirrus clouds.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 S66-62976

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The Gulf of Martaban is in the center and Thailand is at the right here. The Irrawaddy River delta is at the left, and from it a valley runs north to a dry, light- colored region near Mandalay that is sometimes called the Purple Plain. The river to the right of the Irra- waddy is the Sittang, and the Pegu Yoma separates the

two valleys. The view is up the strike of the Arakan Yoma and other mountains in Burma. Geologically these mountains are continuous with the island arcs of Indonesia. Many geologists consider such arcs peripher- al to growing continents. The accretion underway here, however, is occurring along the strike of the arc.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 S66-62979

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Cumulus clouds have grown to extensive heights here, pumping heat and moisture into the high levels of the atmosphere, where cirrus plumes are beginning to ob- scure the lower clouds. The many stages of cumulus de- velopment depicted here were producing summertime showers over Kwangtung Province in China when this

photograph was taken. East is at the top of the picture. Nearly 75 miles of coastal southeastern China can be glimpsed in the upper right corner. Offshore, a line of cumulus clouds parallels the bay-indented, island-stud- ded coast of the Asiatic mainland.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 366-45945

145

The camera was pointed northeast along the Formosa Strait to obtain this picture of Taiwan and the coast of China. The Pescadores Islands are sHghtly above and left of its center. Hot, humid air hangs over southeast- ern China in the summer, and an unstable southwesterly current of maritime air had converared with the North

Pacific trade winds to produce the clouds and showery weather shown here. The cloudiness on the left pre- ceded a weak cold front near the mouth of the Yellow River. The muddy water from river mouths is faintly visible at the upper left.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45860

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This view toward the west of northeastern China in- cludes the 70-mile-wide Hangchou Bay, at the right, into which the Fuchun River empties. The larger clouds are thunderstorms which are effective generators of precipitation over this region during the summer. The cumulus clouds at the upper right are in a northeast-

southwest alinement. The area shown is largely in Chekiang Province, and includes the large cities of Hangchou, Shaohsing, and Ningpo. They are not re- solved because of the range and atmospheric scattering, but the distinctive sediment patterns off the Fuchun and other rivers can be seen clearly.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45960

147

China is at the left, the Pescadores Islands in the cen- ter, and Taiwan at the right here. The mainland's coast is in a youthful stage of development, and jagged be- cause erosion has not yet produced offshore bars or ex- tensive coastal plains along it. The convective cloudi- ness at the right is in air coming from the southeast

over Taiwan's 12 000-foot Chungyang mountain range. Tides complicate the currents in the Formosa Strait here. Astronaut John W. Young called this a "lucky" photo because it was made while the spacecraft was driftina; in a random attitude over the strait.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45866

148

Looking back toward Asia from over the Pacific, 180 miles of China's coast, from Fuchow at the left to Wen- ling at the right, were photographed. The river in the foreground, with an island in its mouth, is the Ou Chang. Sediments discolor the coastal waters near it. Along the right edge, sections of the Yangtze River be-

tween Kiukang and Siangfu can be glimpsed. The con- vective-type clouds, from some of which rain was fall- ing, were over mountainous terrain that rises 5000 feet in places. The region at the left, where the clouds are thickest, is a climatic wind convergence zone during the summer.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45958

149

Convective clouds cover much of Taiwan in this south- erly view, but its shorelines are visible. Taipei is at the lower center. A tropical storm was dissipated east of the island the previous day. The cloud streets beyond the southern tip are alined now in an easterly wind near the surface. Cumulonimbi are in scattered groups elsewhere.

Left of the big island, the tops of thunderstorms are directed toward the east, indicating that there is a west wind at their level, and an open cellular formation of cumulus clouds also can be seen. The cirriform under- cast near the horizon conceals the northernmost of the Philippine Islands.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45956

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Taiwan is a rugged, forested island 250 miles long that parts the major current in the sea the way a ship does. As the "bow wave" spreads, the upwelling near the shore makes the sea darker blue above the island's southern tip, and lighter blue where an evenly rough- ened surface reflects the sunlight. More lowland shows

west of the mountains than to the east. The braided patterns of the rivers are typical of streams issuing from steep mountainous areas. One of several wrench faults that ring the Pacific underlies the narrow eastern valley. "This picture," the astronaut noted, "shows many of the major features that we look for in Earth photography."

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 366-45868

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Part VII. Across the Pacific

It was God's pleasure," Marco Polo wrote after his travels seven centuries ago, "that we should get back in order that people might learn of the things that the world contains." After crossing the lands that were on the frontier of knowledge in Marco Polo's day, the world's largest ocean still lay ahead of the Gemini astronauts.

The Pacific covers nearly a third of the Earth's surface. It has deeper waters than any other ocean, yet it is studded with volcanic island chains which prim- itive people, looking at the stars, reached centuries ago in crude boats. Several of these beautiful bits of land are shown in the photos that follow.

Here, too, you will find a sunrise and a full Moon as photographed from above the clouds that sweep over the Pacific. The astronauts saw the Sun rising and set- ting far more often during their revolutions of the Earth than people on the Earth's surface. They were given general astronomical briefings on phenomena to observe and the reporting procedure to follow so that maximum scientific use could be made of their observations. In addition to the pictures reproduced here, they obtained color photographs of the airglow, the zodiacal light, and the solar eclipse that oc- curred November 12, 1966.

Thus the Gemini science program began what well may be called the extension of the scientific laboratory into space. It demonstrated the usefulness on many occasions of having men aboard spacecraft. More sophisticated and challenging experiments are being designed now, because men have found new ways of learning about things that the Earth and the solar system contain.

153

"The photo [above] was taken," said Astronaut David R. Scott, "during the second sunrise for Gemini VIII. I had hastily unstowed the camera and was anxious to make sure it functioned properly. ... I was in hopes of capturing the magnificence of the scene, particularly the airglow and thunderheads. Unfortunately, the tioie

fidelity of the view was not recorded by the camera." (More sensitive emulsion or longer exposure, or both, would be required to bring out the dim light features.) Study of twilight or dawn bands is of considerable in- terest to scientists. The spacecraft was near Guam when this photo was taken.

GEMINI VIII MARCH 16, 1966 S66-25771

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"The Moon varied greatly during the 2 weeks of flight," Gemini VII's Command Pilot Frank Borman wrote afterward. "Jim [Lovell] took this picture of the full Moon as a symbol of our next goal in manned space flight, the lunar landing. I think it also dramatizes the difference between mere orbital flight and the future

adventures that will take man a quarter of a million miles into the ocean of space." The two astronauts were over the Pacific on their 63d orbit. Trade-wind cumuli lay over that great body of water and extensive areas of cirrostratus were penetrated by the more active cumu- lonimbi.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 8, 1965 S65-63872

155

These clouds came into view over the East Caroline Basin where seamen encounter northeast trade winds north of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean. A variety of convective clouds is shown here, some of which are forming open polygon-shaped cells with larg- er cumuli and cumulonimbi at the cell comers. Air gen-

erally sinks within the open region in a cell and rises near the edges where the clouds are found. The north- em half of Murilo Atoll is just above the spacecraft nose. It is near Truk Island, and about 9° north of the Equator. The lagoon enclosed by this atoll is about 10 miles wide.

GEMINI X JULY 19, 1966 S66-45653

156

Here are 8 of the 80 coral islands in the 1300-mile chain of the Tuamoto Archipelago, a part of French Poly- nesia, about 16° S and 145° W in the South Pacific. The seven most prominent atolls are, from left to right, Tikehau, Rangiroa, Arutua, Kaukura, Apataki, Toau, and Fakarava. A thin line of clouds in the center points

downward to Niau. The poorly organized cumulus ac- tivity is typical of the fair weather in this area. Coco- nut, breadfruit, and pandanus trees grow on these re- mote islands and the limpid waters of their lagoons yield pearl oysters. The islands shown in the next few pictures are far north of this archipelago.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 5, 1965 S65-63827

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This is a nearly vertical view of two of the western Pacific's many volcanic islands, and shows both the motion of the clouds and the waters around them. These are the Daito Islands, about 200 miles east of Okinawa and 400 miles south of Kyushu, Japan. The larger one is Kita Daito Jima. The turbulence in the deep channel

between it and the one below it in the photo and the cross-swell pattern behind them can be seen. In the original transparency of this picture, a typical wind slick, or "tadpole tail," behind the islands can be seen. It is mainly behind the larger island and indicates the wave action and water motion.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45871

158

The most western part of the United States photo- graphed on the Gemini flights was Kure Island, at the lower left here. The Midway Islands are in the center of the picture, and Pearl and Hermes Reef is at the upper right. Coral colonies built these gemlike dots in the sea on the summits of eroded submarine volcanoes

that scientific studies indicate were active at this western end of the long Hawaiian chain before others erupted farther east. Test drillings have shown that the basaltic volcano base of the Midways subsided before the mid- dle Miocene epoch.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 9, 1965 S65-63726

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More details of Pearl and Hermes Reef and the lagoon that encloses its dozen islets can be seen in this photo than in the preceding one. Pearl fishermen once inhab- ited these beautiful protuberances from the Pacific, but these islands are now -part of a national wildlife refuge. The islands from Nihoa to Pearl and Hermes Reef are

often referred to as the "bird islands." Mark Twain called the Hawaiian chain "the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean." Virtually all of the habitable islands of the Pacific were populated before the arrival of Europeans.

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This cloud system was photographed over the Pacific Ocean about 400 miles west of Midway Island. The view was northeasterly along curving cloud lines that marked a cold front which extended into the cloud shield of a cyclonic disturbance at the upper right. The cool air behind the front was being heated by the sur-

face of the sea, and cumulus clouds had formed a cellu- lar pattern near the center of the photograph. Cirriform and cumuliform clouds can be seen preceding the cold front at the right. This picture was taken in November and the same cold front and cyclonic disturbance were photographed again the next day.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 13, 1966 S66-62951,

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After taking the picture on the preceding page, the astronauts circled the Earth 15 times before taking this one north of Midway Islands. This is a view to the northeast along the same cold front that they had noted the day before. This front was part of a cyclonic dis- turbance, the center of which can be seen at the far

end of the clearing. The more dense cloudiness near the center of the picture probably had thunderstorms em- bedded in it along the boundary between the warm and the cool air. Cirrus clouds are shown over the frontal clouds, stratus clouds are to the right of them, and cumuliform clouds to the left.

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This and the next photo were taken very soon after the one that immediately precedes them was taken. From the foreground to the center of this picture are Kure Island, Midway Islands, and Pearl and Hermes Reef, surrounded by blue-green lagoonal waters. The same low-pressure system over the Pacific that was shown in

the preceding picture is shown here in different light. The cold front crosses the center of this picture from left to right in an arc of cumuliform clouds that touches Pearl and Hermes Reef. The cooler air in the fore- ground lay behind the cold front. Ahead of it, toward the horizon, the air was warmer.

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This is a southwesterly view along the same cold front near the Midway Islands in the Pacific that you saw in the three photos that have preceded this one. This shows the cold front from another vantage point. The blue-greenish spots, barely discernible, are, from the right center to the upper center, the images of Pearl

and Hermes Reef, Midway Islands, and Kure Island. The surface winds at Midway Island were westerly at 10 knots when this picture was recorded. The bright region is Sun glitter from the surface of the Pacific. Several series of meteorological pictures such as these were obtained during the Gemini program.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 S66-63080

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Few large areas of the marine atmosphere in and near the Tropics ever seem completely devoid of clouds. There is about one cloud for every 2 square miles of ocean surface in this picture, even though the total cov- er seems small. The blue-green outline of Pearl and Hermes Reef is detectable near the right edge of this

photo under a few scattered cumulus and cirrus clouds. These reefs are near the western end of the chain of inlets and reefs that extends for approximately 1250 miles northwest from the main islands of the Hawaiian group. Most of these bits of the State of Hawaii are uninhabited.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-45844

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The sky west of Midway Islands offered the viewer an- other lesson in meteorology the morning that this photo was taken. Small cumulus clouds were sfrowin? into polygonal, cell-like structures. This occurs when the surface water is warmer than the air, the temperature is evenly distributed, and there is little or no wind. The

cells in this view were not fully developed. Whether they would become well-formed Benard-type cells de- pended on the time available for formation, the differ- ence in temperature between the sea and the atmos- phere, and the height through which the convection was occurring.

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These stratocumulus clouds lay over the Pacific west of Ecuador, South America. The three prominent holes in them, at the upper left, were over the volcanic cones of the Galapagos Islands' mountains. The upper one is above Isla Fernandina's 5075-foot peak; the middle and lower ones are above Isla Isabela's two northernmost

peaks. The lines resembling bow waves near each hole were caused by air moving past the mountains from the east. Although the Galapagos Islands are on the Equator, their climate is temperate throughout the year because they are in the path of the cool Peru Current.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 8, 1965 S65-63854

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Victor Hugo called clouds "the only birds that never sleep." This restless flock of them was photographed in the late afternoon over the eastern Pacific about 1000 miles southwest of Baja California. Vigorous con- vection in the cloud mass at the left was producing a cirrus cloud of ice crystals in the tropical sky, and thin

cirrus was spread over wide areas elsewhere. Polygon- shaped open cells of cumulus clouds can be seen at the lower right, and there are a few cloud streets in the center of the photo. The camera was pointed toward the southeast.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1965 366-63464

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This is a southeasterly view of the eastern Pacific Ocean that includes the Baja California Peninsula and Mexico at the upper left separated by the Gulf of California. Guadalupe Island, in the left center, is surrounded by stratocumulus clouds. Downwind from the island, a chain of vortices has formed similar to eddy patterns

found near the Canary Islands in the Atlantic. The patterns in the foreground indicate cellular convection was occurring in the air near the sea surface. The closed- cell type predominates here, but there are open cells in several areas in the foreground and the upper center.

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This more nearly vertical view of the Von Karman vortices downwind from Guadalupe Island was obtained a minute after the preceding one, when the island was behind the spacecraft nose. These eddies over the eastern Pacific Ocean are disturbances caused in air flowing past its mountainous islands. Weak convective currents

in the lower atmosphere give the stratocumulus clouds their cellular appearance. In a closed cell, the air ascends near the center and descends at its edges. The circu- lation is the opposite of this in an open cell, which has clouds for walls and a clear center. Both types of cells are represented here.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 13, 1966 S66H33494

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Guadalupe Island is in the center of this photo, taken on a clearer day than the other pictures of it in this group. It is a game preserve for elephant seals, and is about 25 miles long. The winds on this day were north- erly and aided in the formation of low stratus clouds over the island's northern coast and the development

of counterrotating eddies downwind. The curved, poorly developed cumulus lines evident here follow, in part, the eddy system in the marine layer. Long, open waves approaching the island from the open Pacific developed the white surf on the island's western shore. The space- craft window blurred an upper corner of this view.

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Guadalupe Island is in the opening in the clouds at the lower right. It is about 180 miles west of Baja California, the long peninsula visible in the center of the photo, beyond the clouds. The island is an extinct volcano that rises from a great depth to an altitude of more than 4900 feet. The large openings in these stratocumulus clouds

are Von Karman vortices that have formed downwind of the island. The cool California current produces a marine climate in this offshore part of Mexico. The Mexican mainland is visible along the horizon beyond the Gulf of California.

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Part VIII. South America

Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan took many of the photographs in this section on what he thinks was "the most fascinating and beautiful trip a man ever made across South America." The spacecraft carried him over the continent on a southeastward course that it would be arduous to follow on foot, and the weather was clear when he looked across Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.

"Without blinking an eye," he wrote afterward, "I could see the high Andes, the Pacific Ocean, the great Altiplano with a jewellike Titicaca, the rain forests of the Amazon Basin, and the Chaco plains on down our orbital path." In addition to what he saw, this section contains pictures taken on three other Gemini flights.

These include some examples of photos taken on color infrared film. The camera has enabled men to use parts of the spectrum to which their own eyes do not respond, and this increases the information obtainable from afar about conditions on the Earth's surface. By combining the observations made in different spectral bands, scientists obtain still more information. This enables them to survey and study developments in parts of the Earth that are difficult and sometimes perilous to enter.

South America has been generous to bygone civilizations as well as to our own (e.g., the potato originated there), but our knowledge of many parts of it is still shamefully meager and can be enhanced by photographs such as these.

173

This is the towering Andean cordillera in Peru as seen from over the Pacific Ocean. The narrow coastal plain in the foreground is between Lima and San Juan. Pen- insula Paracus is nearly in its center. Beyond the peaks above it, the Rio Ucayali, and the VilCabamba Moun- tains, the view extends into the Amazon Basin. The

snow and ice on many peaks are difficult to distinguish from cumulus clouds reflecting the setting Sun's light. The Peru Current brings relatively cool water to this part of South America's western coast and stabilizes the lower atmosphere. Stratus and stratocumulus clouds hover ofTshore here throughout much of the year.

GEMINI IX JUNE 4, 1966 S66-38281

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This photo was taken from above the main ridges of the Andes. An irregular band of stratocumulus follows the Western slopes of the mountains a few degrees south of the Equator in Ecuador and Peru. The Amazon Basin begins at the far left, where cumuliform clouds coxer the Maraiion river's course. The Golfo de Guayaquil is

in the foreground, with the Isla de Puna below it. Early in the 1500's, Pizzaro began his search for South Amer- ica's gold near a point of land formed by a river delta at the lower right. It is now Tumbes, the most northern port of Peru. Another, more southerly, strip of the Peru- vian coast is in the upper right corner.

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The large cui-ving embayment near the center of this view of western Peru is the Bahia de Sechura, and the narrow coastal plain around it is called the Desierto de Sechura. The results of irrigation along the rivers that cross it are quite apparent. The shoreline shown extends south from Talara about 375 miles to Chimbote. The

Pacific waters off the cape at the far left are famous for big-game fishing; black marlin weighing more than half a ton are caught there. The high Andean chain cuts across the upper part of the photo, and snow can be seen on its peaks. South America's enormous Amazon drainage system begins in the upper left corner.

GEMINI IX JUNE 5, 1966 S66-38291

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Some parts of the canyon that crosses this picture di- agonally are 2 miles deep. These are the mountains of Peru east of the coastal plain shown in the preceding pic- ture. The Rio Maraiion, which carries water from them to the Amazon, flows through this canyon. Tropical for- ests cover the Cordillera Central and the Cordillera

Oriental below the scattered cumuliform clouds at the left. Near the right edge, a snow-covered peak of the Cordillera Blanca is quite distinct. This photo includes parts of five northern departments of Peru: Ancash, La Libertad, San Martin, Amazonas, and Cajamarca. This is still a poorly mapped part of the world.

GEMINI IX JUNE 5, 1966 S66-38525

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This photograph of nearly 250 miles of Peru's coast sug- gests how helpful spacecraft may be to surveyors. In the middle of the shoreline shown, a narrow strip of land connects Ferral Peninsula to the mainland near Chim- bote. The snowline toward the upper left is more than 16 000 feet above the sea. The Continental Divide fol-

lows the Cordillera Blanca across the country there. One of the most prominent snow-covered peaks is the 22 505- foot Huascaran volcano. A thin white line can be seen running down its western slope toward the sea. This is the scar left in 1962 by an avalanche that killed several thousand persons in the Rio Santo Valley.

GEMINI IX JUNE 5, 1966 366-38298

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Another strip of the coast of Peru, south of the area shown on the preceding page, is at the top of this picture of the Andes as they appeared when photographed from the east. The large dark lake in the center here is Lago de Junin. Cerro de Pasco is to the right of it, at an alti- tude of 17 572 feet. The Cordillera Huayhuash ranges.

an important source of minerals, are between the lake and the sea. Snow whitens many of the peaks. The island in the upper right is San Lorenzo. Callao, the port which serves Lima, Peru's capital, is on a small peninsula near that island, over which smoke was floating when this picture was taken.

GEMINI IX JUNE 5, 1966 366-38300

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Rivers visible between the cumulus clouds at the bottom of this picture flow nearly 4000 miles to mouths on the Atlantic. The Pacific continental shelf is at the top of the photo. The Peruvian coastline shown extends south- eastward from Bahia de Caballa to Nevada Coropuna. Inland toward the left one can see the great snowfields

on Nevada Coropuna, 21 079 feet high, and Nevada Ampato's twin peaks, 20 702 feet high. The clear zone in the sky may have resulted from the upwelling of cold water and divergence in the atmosphere's friction layer. This divergence is produced when a southeast wind blows over the water adjacent to the arid shoreland.

GEMINI IX JUNE 5, 1966 S66-38303

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Cusco, once the Inca empire's capital, is nearly in the center of this photo of the towering mountains south- east of Lima, Peru. At the left, where the Cordillera Vilcanota rises 22 000 feet, fields of snow form a white cup around the Laguna Sibanacochas. Below that cup, cumulus clouds and blue haze darken the flat tropical

rain forests of the Madre de Dios drainage system. Mile-deep canyons abound along the eastern front of the Andes. The clouds at the right in this view follow the mountains' cur\ing ridges. At the very top of the picture, streaked by snow, is Flor del Mundo. Its north- em flank is the source of the Amazon River.

GEMINI IX JUNE 5, 1966 366-38306

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This is the world's highest navigable lake: Titicaca is 12 500 feet above the sea, 700 feet deep, and covers 3200 square miles. La Paz, Bolivia's capital, is tucked against the Cordillera Real southeast of it. Peru shares the shores of Titicaca with Bolivia and in the distance you can see the Chilean-Peruvian desert along the Pacific.

The land is arid there despite its nearness to the sea and offshore cloudiness. Two salt flats, Salar de Uyuni and Salar de Coipasa, are near the left edge of the photo. Many volcanoes in the snowcapped Andes exceed 20 000 feet. The snow at the lower right is on the Cordillera Vilcanota.

GEMINI IX JUNE 5, 1966 S66-38312

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The bleak, windswept plateau in the lower center of this photo is the Altiplano between Lake Poopo, at the left, and Lake Titicaca, at the right. Lake Poopo is smaller and a few hundred feet lower than Titicaca. West of it enormous salt flats whiten the landscape near- ly as much as do the clouds over the Pacific at the upper

right. The warm, dry, upper-level air of the trade winds reaches the high elevations of Bolivia and gives this region a desert or steppe climate. Much of the shoreline here is in Chile. The stratus cloudiness over the Pacific is often a persistent feature of the weather along this part of the coast.

GEMINI IX JUNE 5, 1966 S66-38313

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The Andean uplift extends along the west coast of South America for 5000 miles. This was the view to the south when the spacecraft crossed it north of Lake Poopo, in the foreground, and the salt fiats shown in two previous pictures. Beyond them are the mountains of southern Bolivia, and the volcanoes, lakes, and salt beds of the

Puna de Atacama. The view includes northern parts of both Argentina and Chile. At the left the easterly ranges of the Andes drop to the rolling forested region of the Gran Chaco. At the right near the horizon is a deck of stratus clouds that extends far down the long Pacific coast of Chile.

GEMINI IX JUNE 5, 1966 S66-38315

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Low stratus clouds extended inland possibly 5 miles and cumuliform clouds covered the Andes 100 miles from the sea when this photo was taken of the mountains around Arequipa, Peru's second largest city. The Rio Majes canyon in the center is a mile deep. The city is in the lower part of this view's center, at an altitude of 7500

feet. Northeast of it, three volcanos, Misti, Chachani, and Ampato rise, respectively, 19 098, 19 931, and 20 702 feet. Snow is found on the high peaks, but Arequipa is famous for its flower gardens. Ruins of a civilization be- lieved to have preceded that of the Incas have been found near it.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54832

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The setting Sun's rays gave a golden tint to the thick edges of cirrostratus clouds, and the Cordillera de Los Andes threw long shadows eastward, when the astro- nauts obtained this picture of southwestern Brazil, north- ern Argentina, and Chile. Two salt flats and two small lakes, the Laguna Pastos Grandes and the Salina Olaroz,

can be distinguished in the foreground when one studies this photo with a map of the area in hand. South Amer- ica's Andean spine includes many of the Western Hemi- sphere's highest peaks. Here, however, the convective towers protruding upward in the clouds are more prom- inent than the mountains for which the area is noted.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 12, 1965 S65-63780

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There were four layers of clouds below the spacecraft the day this picture was taken over equatorial northwest Brazil. When viewed stereoscopically, by using this and an adjacent frame (not reproduced here), each layer is distinct. Two are high-level layers of cirrus, beneath which there is a middle layer of altocumulus, and a lower

layer of cumulus. The cumulus-cloud pattern reflects the underlying cool surface of a large river containing islands. It probably is the Rio Negros near Barcelos, a town in the State of Amazonas. The Rio Negros is a broad stream that crosses the Equator to flow southeast into the Amazon River.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-46047

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Brazil's northernmost State, Rio Branco, is in the fore- ground, Venezuela in the left, and Guyana in the right of this photo. The dark, forested areas under cumulus- cloud patterns around the basin in the center are pla- teaus of sandstones and lava flows, resting on the Pre- cambrian granites and gneisses that constitute the cloud-

free basin. The rain forest yields valuable wood and wood products, and the crystalline rocks contain much mineral wealth, including gold and diamonds, but the vegetation has hampered exploration. The large looping river in the lower center is the Rio Tacutu, which joins another stream to form the Rio Branco.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-46050

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The Pakarima Mountains are in the lower right here, and Brazil, Venezuela, and Guyana meet beneath a heavy cloud patch over Mount Roraima near the center. Beyond Mount Roraima is the Gran Sabana, Venezue- la's portion of the Guyana highlands. Although these high, flat-topped mesas occupy nearly half of Venezuela,

less than 3 percent of the people live on them. The com- plex pattern of cumulus clouds here is shaped by the topography and by light winds of a weak pressure gra- dient. Near the coastal region in the upper part of the picture, these clouds trend east-west. There is some cirrus cloudiness in the lower left.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-46051

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This picture overlaps the preceding one and includes the northern coast of South America from Caracas, Ven- ezuela, at the left, to Georgetown, Guyana, at the right. Landward, a narrow coastal plane separates the great Guyana plateau from the sea. The massive delta of the Orinoco River is in the upper center and the mouth of

the Essequibo River is at the right. The larger tributaries of the Essequibo River system are remarkably outlined in the cumulus-cloud pattern. Sedimentation has dis- colored the Atlantic waters at the river mouths and along the shore. Scattered over the sea offshore are trade- wind cumuli.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-46052

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This and the next two photos were taken on color in- frared film. They show Brazil's Atlantic coast from the Baia de Sao Marcos, in the upper left here, eastward around the Natal corner and south to Joao Pessoa. Vary- ing tones of red indicate changes in the green vegeta- tion. Dense growth on coastal lowlands deepens the red

near the Baia de Sao Marcos. Only a few major streams, draining a small part of Brazil's highlands, feed this bay. From it the land rises gradually to more than 400 feet above sea level at the right edge of the photo. The cloud pattern here consists of cumuli in rows, cumuli congesti, and a few wisps of cirrus.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 17, 1965 S65-64069

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One can trace rivers in the foreground of this infrared photo of the Brazilian coastHne from Ponta Redonda east nearly to Natal. The city of Fortaleza is under the clouds over the prominent cape in the center. The shore on both sides of it and inland, where there are moun- tains, is tinted by dense vegetation. Lowlands surround

the Serra da Uruburetama in the lower center. A sea breeze had kept miles of the sandy beach free from clouds. Near the horizon the clouds are distinct because the intervening atmosphere does not scatter as much light at near-infrared wavelengths as it does at the shorter wavelengths used in most photography.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 17, 1965 S65-64073

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This photo partly overlaps the preceding one. It shows Brazil's coast as far east as Ponta Jericoacoaroa, the cape at the very top. Pamaiba is several miles inland from the cape in the center, and Camocim is in a small bay above it. The white splashes are quartz sand, carried down from highlands by rivers, strewn by coastal cur-

rents, and whipped into dunes by offshore winds. Cumu- lus clouds laced above by cirrus begin inland, beyond the cooling effect of the sea breeze. The terrain's redness shows how heavily it is cloaked by vegetation. The land rises to more than 2500 feet at the upper right, where the Serra da Ibiapaba ends.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 17, 1965 865-64070

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The strip of Brazil's northeast coast in the foreground here begins near Carutapera and continues to the Ama- zon River's mouth at the right. The many rows of con- vective clouds, ranging from tiny cumuli to towering cumulonimbi, extend far inland. Near the center they part over the long Baia de Marajo by which ships ap-

proach Belem. The Ilha de Marajo is to the right, sep- arated from two other islands, Ilha Mexiana and Cavi- ana (at the right edge), by the Canal do Sul, one of the Amazon's main channels. The sea is discolored be- yond them by suspended sediments for distances up to 50 miles.

GEMINI IX JUNE 4, 1966 S66-38191

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A late-afternoon Sun penetrated the parallel rows of cumulus clouds in the foreground of this nearly vertical picture enough to expose the large islands in the broad, brown Amazon River's mouth. Alongside the cirrus clouds at the top of the photo, thick smoke from burning forests obscured the view. The Amazon's main channels

are Canal do Sul, below center, and Canal do Norte, above it. The great river's mouth is dirtied by the vast quantities of mud and silt that it carries far into the Atlantic currents off Brazil's northern shore. Here the water flows through a low, swampy, thinly populated tidewater area covered by forests.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 12, 1965 365-64001

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When one looks closely at South America's coast here, one sees four rivers adding silt to the coastal currents off Guyana and Surinam. From the left they are the Cou- rantyne, Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo. Dikes have converted areas slightly below sea level into valuable plantation land along this Atlantic coast. Its sedimentary

strata are shales, clays, sands, and lignites, built up largely from the muds brought northward from the Amazon's mouth. Georgetown, Guyana's capital, is at the Demerara's mouth. Convective cloudiness dominates this region throughout the year, and in this photo thunderstorms are also visible inland.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13, 1965 S65-64029

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"We stole some time from our sleep period to get this picture," Astronaut Michael Collins recalls. "Even from space it appeared as some of the most forbidding jungle territory in the world. This is as close as I ever hope to get to it." The Orinoco River mouth is at the left, and the Essequibo's mouth is near the center of this view.

Both rivers were pouring silt and mud into the Atlantic for coastal currents to carry along and build up deposits of shale, clay, and lignites. The morning Sun was heat- ing the land, and complex patterns of cumulus clouds were being built up over it. Broad parts of this coastal land are a few feet below sea level.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-46054

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This photograph of the northern coast of Surinam shows low-level cloud convergences that do not appear on the usual synoptic weather map. The cloud lines are readily associated with the boundaries of turbid water. Seeing the distribution of suspended sediment, and the vari- ations in the resulting turbidity of the water, as one can

here, is extremely helpful in oceanographic research. The current shears were parallel to the coast on the day this picture was taken, and tons of sediment brought from the continent's interior by the rivers were being spread far to the west. There is no cool season in the Guyanas.

GEMINI X JULY 21, 1966 S66-46056

198

In this view of Venezuela, cumulus clouds dot the land and cirrus veils the Caribbean Sea. The coastline in- cluded runs from Tocuyo de la Costa, near the center at the top, to Naiguata. Lago de Valencia is in the cloud-free area in the center, and the Rio Tuy is to the right of it. Caracas, the capital, is about halfway be-

tween the river and the coast. The Andes in this area are composed of Mesozoic igneous and metamorphic strata. The vast featureless plain at the lower left is the Orinoco basin. A large reservoir on the Rio Guarico is barely discernible there, but the Rio Tuy's tributaries stand out clearly in the lower right of the photo.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 12, 1965 S65-63995

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The bright line of cumulus clouds in the upper center runs downward from Curasao to Aruba. A peninsula of Colombia and the 60-mile-wide entry to the Golfo de Venezuela are under the cirrus clouds in the foreground. At the right, below a narrow strip of land between the Peninsula de Paraguana and the mainland, is the rect-

angular Golfete de Coro, darkened by the sediment car- ried seaward by South American streams. Faults be- tween the Andean spurs outline the Golfo de Venezue- la, and a surface deposit of Quaternary alluvium is found on the Cretaceous and Tertiary beds in this fault basin.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 12, 1965 S65-63993

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From over the Caribbean Sea, the camera was pointed southwest toward South America to obtain this picture. The semiarid islands of the Lesser Antilles cross it near the center. From the left they are the Isia Orchila, Islas Los Roques, Has de Aves, Bonaire, Curagao, and Aruba. The Venezuelan shore above them extends from Barce-

lona at the left to the country's reddish, northernmost tip, the Peninsula de Paraguana, at the right. This part of the world has been photographed from several space- craft, but clouds usually have obscured the surface. Even here convective and cirriform cloudiness conceals much of the landscape.

GEMINI IX JUNE 4, 1966 S66-38189

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Part IX. Mexico

JVIexico is between 14° and 33° north of the Equator and the orbits of the Gemini flights gave the astronauts rnany opportunities to photograph it. The central pla- teau is bounded on the west by the Sierra Madre Occidental, and on the east by the Sierra Madre Oriental. Between these high ranges, other mountains partition the land into a maze bedecked by volcanoes, lakes, and deserts. These photos show the land through which the Spaniards advanced into the southwestern part of the United States.

The Gemini astronauts approached it from the Pacific rather than from the Atlantic and often crossed Baja California, which extends down the western coast of North America for 800 miles, before they soared over the mainland. Joseph Wood Krutch has called Baja California "the forgotten peninsula" for reasons quite apparent in these photos.

Below the long Gulf of California, the continent curves east around the Gulf of Mexico. The Yucatan Peninsula extends to the north from this part of Mexico nearly to Cuba's western tip. When one recalls the known history of this land, and the civilizations that flourished there before the Spaniards arrived, the pictures in this section become especially fascinating. Some of the views here extend northward into the United States for many miles.

203

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This and the next few photos, taken from spacecraft as they approached Mexico, show how greatly its appear- ance varied on different occasions. The thick, high, cir- rostratus cloud here concealed all but a few bits of Baja California, at the left and toward the lower right corner. A number of thunderstorms formed this great circular

body. Several convective cells appeared to have gained sufficient momentum to penetrate its thick layer, and the rippled surface of the cirrostratus suggests that di- verging updraf ts from other convective cells have reached their maximum stage of development and begun to dissipate.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 7, 1965 S65-63834

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On one occasion the camera recorded bands of cirrus clouds that extended for 300 miles in southwesterly winds between the mountains in Sonora and Baja Cali- fornia. This photo includes the Pinacate volcanic field at the left, on the border between the United States and

Mexico. Baja California has changed less than most parts of the New World since the Spanish built missions there in the 17th century. Here the birds and other na- tive creatures have gone their way virtually undisturbed. So, too, have many of this peninsula's distinctive plants.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 S66-63015

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This picture, taken on the next revolution after the one on which the previous photo was taken, shows some of Baja California and the North American mainland under different lighting. Dark patches in the Sun glitter on the Pacific are regions of smooth water. Patches of stratocumulus clouds are near the top of the photo.

Clouds such as that long, conspicuous band of cirrus that arcs along the right side of the picture usually indi- cate the existence of a subtropical Jetstream nearby. The Jetstream winds are encountered in this region when an upper air trough is located over the eastern Pacific Ocean.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 S66-63054

206

From over the Pacific, you are looking southeast now at Baja California. In the foreground long fingers of cirrus reach toward Punta Eugenia. The large oval at the left is Bahia Sebastian Vizcaino, and the lagoon is Ojo de Liebre, where gray whales breed. The dry air evaporates sea water to form white salt flats south of

this lagoon. The mountains in the center of the cape are underlain by Cretaceous metamorphic, igneous, and sedimentary rock. This part of North America's shore is characterized by abundant Tertiary and Quaternary vulcanism. Beyond the Gulf of California, which ex- tends across the upper half of the photo, is Sonora.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 5, 1965 865-63822

207

Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan took this maplike picture of the Pacific coast of Mexico alongside Gemini IX's nose while the hatch was open. The Sierra Madre Occi- dental extends along the left shore of the Gulf of Cali- fornia in the center. The Sierra La Giganta is in the foreground, and the southern end of Baja California is

spread before you at the right. The State capital, La Paz, is at the far end of the large bay in the narrow neck near the long peninsula's tip. The irregular dark topography is typical of a surface underlain mainly by igneous and metamorphic rock. The clouds on the horizon are south of the Tropic of Cancer.

GEMINI IX JUNE 5, 1966 S66-38070

208

The spacecraft's nose was pointed at the central part of Baja Cahfornia when this photo was taken. Angel de La Guarda Island in the Gulf of California was visible at the lower left below the cloud system over the gulf. Bahia Sebastian Vizcaino is in the upper center of this view and beyond it to the south are Punta Abreojos,

Laguna San Ignacio, and Bahia Ballenas. The current in the Pacific was sweeping strongly from north to south and relatively cool. Punta Abreojos projected into the main stream of this current, and caused the series of turbulent eddies visible in the slick pattern of the Sun's reflection in the upper center of the picture.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 S66-63044

209

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Cabo Corrientes is above Gemini XI Fs nose in this open- hatch photo, taken by Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., south of Baja California. At the left are dark, dissected ranges of the Sierra Madre Occidental, an extensive plateau of Tertiary volcanics. Beyond the cape, around Lago de Chapala, is the Neo- Volcanic plateau, a band

of Tertiary, Quaternary, and Recent volcanics that ex- tends eastward to the Gulf of Mexico. To the south is the Sierra Madre del Sur, a complex mountainous area of older rocks. A spiral is visible in the cumulus-cloud streets near the cape where the coastal configuration induced an eddv in the northerly airflow.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66-62883

210

The Gulf of Tehuantepec is in the right foreground now. It is about 1000 miles south at the same longitude as Houston. The Y-shaped reservoir is near the Pacific Coastal Plain of Mexico. From it the Rio Tehuantepec flows past the city of Tehuantepec. At Laguna Superior, you see a long sand bar. Laguna Inferior is farther

right. The Sierra Madre del Sur's southern and east- ern edges are in the upper left of this photo. The Gulf Coastal Plain begins below the cellular strato- cumulus clouds in the upper right corner. The Sierra Travesada, marking the edge of the Chiapas-Guate- mala Uplands, begins just above the lagoons.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 11, 1965 S65-63760

211

Mexico City is a white patch distinct from the cirrus clouds at the top here. You are looking north and the city of Puebla is in the broad valley toward the upper right. The Neo-Volcanic Plateau in the top half of the photo averages 8000 feet in height. Three volcanic cones — Serro Tlaloc, Iztaccihuatl, and Popocatepetl —

extend south from the top center. The latter rises 17 887 feet. In the foreground is part of the Sierra Madre del Sur system. This complex area of Paleozoic metasediments has fewer volcanoes, but pyroclastics cover large areas. The rivers that drain this lower region flow into the Pacific.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 11, 1965 S65-63757

212

The mountains here are east of those in the preceding picture and the Gulf of Mexico south of Veracruz is in the upper right. An upland of the Madre del Sur sys- tem is at the lower left, and the Valle de Oaxaca, bor- dered by sharply dissected rims on the north and east, is in the fores;round. The snow-covered volcano in the

upper center is Citlaltepec, 18 701 feet high. Strato- cumulus clouds were pushed toward it from the gulf. Through the largest gap in them, Miguel Aleman, a large reservoir, is visible. Radiosonde data at Veracruz showed that the cloud tops were about 3500 feet high when the photo was taken.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 11, 1965 S65-63758

213

This view to the southeast over Mexico extends to the Yucatan Peninsula. Mexico City is just north of a for- ested region from which smoke is rising near the center. The large brown lake in the foreground is Lago de Cuit- zeo. The dark spots are areas of volcanic rock. This plateau's thousands of volcanoes are mostly Quaternary

and Tertiat7. Rocks that span the geologic column from Precambrian to Quaternary' time are found in the Madre del Sur Mountains at the right. The rows of cumuli in the foreground are in a light easterly wind. The clouds over Mexico's eastern coast and Central America in the distance are mostly cumuliform.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66-62887

214

The tiny, cloud-free area above the spacecraft's open hatch in this view of southern Mexico is a basin near Puebla. Cumulus clouds have formed lines with the wind at many places, and high cirriform clouds are scattered over the Gulf of Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula at the upper left. The indentation in the clouds on Yuca-

tan's north shore is west of Laguna de Terminos. Sur- face temperatures are likely to be lower in the marshy land there. Mexico's part of the Yucatan Peninsula is mostly a coastal plain, but south of it in Guatemala there are many complex mountains, bordered by older ranges near the Pacific.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66H52891

215

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The eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula is in the foreground of this photo. Trade-wind cumuli lie beneath a higher stratiform cloud layer. Bahia de la Ascension on the Caribbean Sea at the lower left is in Quintana Roc, Mexico, and Ambergris Cay, at the right edge, is in British Honduras. Offshore there are numerous cays

and reefs, amidst which Banco Chinchorro stands out near the center. Around Bahia de Chetumal at the lower right, the land is low, flat, and swampy. Dense vegetation obscures its topography. This part of Cen- tral America is still emerging geologically and is com- posed mostly of Tertiary limestones.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 10, 1965 S65-63741

216

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All three shores of the Yucatan Peninsula can be seen at the left in this northwesterly view from over the Carib- bean. This is where Spanish explorers found the rem- nants of the Mayan civilization. Western Cuba pro- jects from the foreground into the center of this picture. White towers of cumuli reached upward into the moist

atmosphere over the Gulf of Mexico the day this photo was taken, and small cumuli dotted Yucatan except where cumulonimbi had developed at its eastern end. Cirrus cloudiness generated by thunderstorms is pre- valent in the Caribbean region in the lower left quadrant of the photo.

GEMINI X JULY 19, 1966 S66-45688

217

Now the view is to the north through central Mexico. The Sierra Madre Occidental is in the lower left and the Sierra Madre Oriental's dark ridges cross this photo above its center. Composed of folded Cretaceous sedi- ments, these mountains form a long chain from the Big Bend country to the Neo-Volcanic plateau. Left of the

center, the light-colored, sandy Bolson de Coahuila separates the mountainous Coahuila upland and the westward swing of the cross ranges. Several layers of cumuliform and cirrifomi clouds are along Mexico's east coast. The cloud deck near the horizon is connected with a cold front movins; south from Texas.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66-62889

218

North of Mexico City, the Mexican plateau is actually a basin surrounded by higher terrain. This picture of it was obtained with the camera pointed northeast, and includes parts of four States: Aguascalientes, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi, and Guanajuato. This is a hilly area, composed mostly of dissected volcanics, and the drainage

is into shallow lakes. These are usually salty and some- times dry. The top of this photo is blurred because of a residue on the window of Gemini VII, but a few widely scattered cumulus clouds and some cirrus can be seen. The dark patch at lower left is an area of volcanic rock.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 6, 1965 S65-63814

219

Small cumulus clouds hung like a tiny crown atop the Sierra de la Palma, in the upper center, to adorn this photo of the mainland's eastern mountains. The Sierra de la Palma is a roughly triangular, isolated mass of uplifted Cretaceous rocks at the eastern end of Antefosa de Parras in the Sierra Madre Oriental. Erosion of

folded sedimentaiy rocks formed the zigzag pattern to the right of this peak; these folds plunge eastward so that the uplift is essentially across the direction of the main folds. When Heman Cortes was asked for a relief map of Mexico after his conquest of it, he simply crumpled a piece of parchment.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 9, 1965 365-63888

220

The stratocumulus cloud deck with cells and billows shown here stretched across eastern Mexico. The high ranges in the foreground are south of Monterrey. These intensely folded Cretaceous sedimentary rocks mark both the front of the Sierra Madre Oriental and a bend in the mountain range. No one knows why the range bends

about 60° toward the west here, but some geologists suspect that a major wrench fault going through the Antefosa de Parras dragged the mountains around in this way. The city of Saltillo is in the valley just above the nose of the spacecraft, and parts of two States, Coahuila and Nuevo Leon, are visible.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 9, 1965 S65-63889

221

The waters off Tamaulipas, south of Brownsville, Tex., are usually clear, but the high surf the day this photo was taken stirred sediment into suspension, and tidal movements caused the swirls you see in the sediment pattern. The coastal strip shown extends south for 150

miles from Boca de Sandoval to the Tropic of Cancer. Behind the offshore bar is Laguna Madre. At the low- er left the Rio Purificacion meanders out of the Sierra de Tamaulipas and across the narrow plain to the gulf.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 6, 1965 S65-63810

222

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For this picture the camera was pointed east over the Sierra Madre Oriental toward the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the interior highland can be seen in the foreground. Those long dark ridges, visible despite the cirrus-cloud cover, are in the vicinity of Monterrey. The largest de-

flection in the trend of the Sierra Madre Oriental is found there. In the background, heavy, moist air from the gulf veils the view. The high mountains along the coast barricade the interior land from such humid air.

GEMINI IX JUNE 3, 1966 366-37907

223

The Sierra Madre Occidental is in the lower left corner of this view and the city of Chihuahua is just below a featherlike cirrus cloud in the upper left center. Rows of cumuli at the right are over a part of the Sierra Madre Oriental. This is an area of relatively low relief but high elevation. Mountain ranges are widely spaced

here and intennontane basins are filled with Quaternary alluvium. The Rio Grande flows through the region at the upper right. North of it is El Solitario, a 3-mile-wide dome over a laccolith that brings lower Paleozoic and Cretaceous sediments to the surface along with Tertiary rocks.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 S66-63055

224

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This view of northeastern Mexico extends into Texas. The mouth of the Rio Grande is in the upper right, and Nuevo Leon and Coahuila are in the foreground. The color reveals these States' deserthke climate. The cloud lines over the coastal lowlands show that the airflow in the lower troposphere is from the east. The leeward,

western slopes of some ranges of the Sierra Madre Ori- ental are free of clouds. Notice, too, how the cloud lines confomi to the curvature of the ranges near Monterrey at the right. The immense folded mountain chain in the foreground runs southeast from Chihuahua nearly to the gulf.

GEMINI X JULY 20, 1966 S'j6-45762

225

The horizon here is more than 1000 miles away. Part of Chihuahua, Mexico, is in the foreground. The Sierra Madre Occidental is at the left and the Sierra Madre Oriental is at the right. The view is directly north up the Rio Grande valley and includes most of the southern Rockv Mountains. Eastern Arizona is on the horizon at

the far left, and central Oklahoma and Kansas at the right. Near the center of the picture, the white patch to the right of the Rio Grande is the White Sands Na- tional Monument. North of it is the distinct, black, rib- bonlike shape of the Malpais, a recent lav'a flow north of Alamogordo, N. Mex.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 866-63018

226

Part X. The United States

OOME parts of the United States were shown in pictures that precede this group. Since the girdle that the Gemini program threw around the world did not extend as far north as south of Cape Kennedy, the photographs that follow are predominant- ly views of the southern coast of the United States around the Gulf of Mexico.

This is not a "forgotten" area such as Baja California. Nor is it a barren land. It differs markedly from many of the regions shown previously. This is a region in which people have been quick to develop the resources available to them, and parts of it are now highly industrialized. Even so, when seen from space its beauty still rivals that of many undeveloped regions.

By enabling us to see the scheme of things entire, space photography can help men both exploit an undeveloped region's natural resources and monitor the skies, seashores, and forests to prevent pollution and degradation of them.

This was the astronauts' homeland and they photographed the city of Houston many times. Along the gulf shore they used infrared along with other color film to obtain more information than one can with the naked eye. Above Florida's east coast they saw their starting point again, and sped east again and again to see more of the world.

"We have achieved the ability to see and contemplate ourselves from afar," Dr. Floyd L. Thompson wrote shortly before he retired as Director of the Langley Research Center, "and thus in a measure to accomplish the wish expressed by Robert Burns : 'To see oursels as ithers see us.' "

227

North America's Pacific coast, from Los Angeles, near the left edge, to Baja California is slightly above the stratocumulus clouds in the foreground. San Diego is nearly in the center. The massive mountain range at the extreme left is the south end of the Sierra Nevada. Above Los Angeles is the large, bare Mojave Desert.

The San Andreas fault runs southeast from it between mountain ranges to the Salton Sea, right of center. The clouds on the horizon hide most of the Colorado Plateau. In the clouds at the lower right, the photo shows a re- markable set of waves, probably induced by irregularity in the terrain alonsr the coast.

GEMINI X JULY 19, 1966 S66-45658

228

A wide-angle lens used during extravehicular activity produced this colorful view of the United States from the Gulf of California, at lower right, to the Colorado Pla- teau. The Salton Sea is above the red dot on the space- craft. Farms outline California's Imperial Valley and the Colorado River's delta in northern Mexico. This

part of the Great Basin shows typical basin-and-range topography. The distant clouds were scattered over Cali- fornia and western Arizona. The dark elliptical area above the gulf is the Pinacate volcanic field, and the light smoke plume above it was rising from the forested region northeast of Phoeniz, Ariz.

GEMINI IX JUNE 5, 1966 S66-38068

229

Corpus Christi Bay is at the top and Mexico's Laguna Madre at the bottom of this nearly vertical view of the Rio Grande's deltaic plain. The international boundary is in the lower half of the photo. The long curving beach is Padre Island. It is typical of barriers that rim the Gulf of Mexico on the west, and has been studied as a pos-

sible clue to the formation of oil traps. The Intracoastal Waterway can be seen in the shallow Laguna Madre and a belt of grassland begins inland from the sand bars. Cumuli had formed inland while a cool sea breeze re- stricted cloud development along the coast.

GEMINI X JULY 20, 1966 S66-45764

230

San Antonio is in the light area left of the center. Austin is above and to the right of it on the Texas Colorado River. The cities are along the fault-controlled Balcones Escarpment that is the east edge of the Edwards Plateau. Differences in the shale and sand content of the Tertiary units cause variations in soil color, topographic expres-

sion, and vegetation. In the upper left, the Llano Uplift brings a complex dome of Precambrian rocks to the sur- face. Lower Paleozoic carbonates and sandstone sur- round it. The stratocumulus clouds at the right are on the north side of a cold front.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66-63428

231

Austin is now above Gemini XII's nose and San Antonio is in the lower center. Near Austin one can see Buch- anan, Lyndon B. Johnson, Travis, and Canyon Lakes. The curving Balcones Escarpment is above these cities, and cuestas on the coastal plain are visible from north of San Antonio to the vicinity of Waco. In the upper

left, the Red River flood plain crosses dense pine forests of Louisiana. The Mississippi River's mouth is between the stratocumulus and cirrus clouds near the horizon. Suspended alluvial sediments show the currents off the Texas shore in the Gulf of Mexico between the Missis- sippi and Aransas Pass at the right.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 196(> S66-63024

232

Taken only seconds after the previous photo, this one has Houston's metropolitan area in the center. The Bal- cones Escarpment is now just above the spacecraft nose. The Houston ship channel and spoil banks in Galveston Bay can be seen at the right, where the ancient Pleis- tocene shoreline stands out as the present northwest

shore of Matagorda and Espirito Santo Bays. Matagorda, Galveston, and other islands are raised offshore bars. Such bars extend along the Texas coast eastward to Sabine Pass. Northerly winds along the Louisiana coast were carrying smoke plumes toward the stratocumulus- cloud field over the Gulf of Mexico.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER U, 1966 S66-63025

233

This picture overlaps the two photos that have preceded it in this volume, and shows the dense pine forest in east Texas that is known as "The Big Thicket" more clearly. The Sam Raybum Reservoir can be seen in that thicket. Along the shore, suspended Sediments can be traced as they are carried out into the Gulf of Mexico.

Note especially the upper part of this photo, where wavy patterns in the clouds are quite distinct, and smoke from fires near oil and gas wells in the Vermillion Bay area is being blown out over the gulf. The next picture in this sequence was taken about 90 minutes later and shows interesting changes in the sky.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 866-63031

234

After circling the Earth, the Gemini astronauts took this picture of the same area shown in the preceding one. The patch of stratiform clouds over Louisiana, in the upper part of the photo, had shrunk in size, and some dissipation of the stratocumulus clouds over the water along the coast had occurred. Smoke from the

shoreline still drifted southward, and sediment patterns still discolored the water. The Red River Valley cuts a swath across the dark forest lands in the left center. North of the Red River are ridges of the Ouachita and Wichita Mountains of Oklahoma.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 S66-63062

235

Here is the city of Houston as seen from an altitude of about 175 miles. The city is directly below "The Big Thicket" in this photo. The big Harris County domed stadium in the southwest part of the city is only a white dot. The dark-blue line across Galveston Bay is the Hous-

ton ship channel. Turbid waters extend into the Gulf of Mexico from several outlets. A marsh fire sent up the stream of smoke in the upper right. NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center is 20 miles southeast of Houston.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 S66-63034

236

From east of Galveston Bay, Astronaut James A. Lovell, Jr., looked back to photograph it again. To the right is the Beaumont-Port Arthur and Lake Charles industrial complex. The coastal sky was clear from Vermillion Bay to Baffin Bay, and the Intracoastal Waterway can be traced from Orange on the Sabine River east to Grand

Lake in this photo. A cold front had crossed the coast 2 days earlier and the winds still were from the north- east. They were thrusting water into the gulf from the lagoons and estuaries. An interference eddy had formed west of the Galveston jetties, and frictional eddies were visible farther seaward.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 S66-63035

237

This southwesterly view of the gulf coast includes many of the same features as the preceding pictures, but ex- tends from Marsh Island in the foreground to south of Brownsville. The cell-like patterns in the stratocumulus clouds over the gulf appear when water warms the lower part of the atmosphere. Drizzle was reported in north-

eastern Mexico from the clouds near the top center here. Below them one can see the Balcones Escarpment. Some of the world's most important shrimp fisheries are in the coastal waters shown, and photos such as this can be used to improve predictions of currents that affect shrimp migration paths and rates.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 S66-63038

238

Here one sees again some of the same area shown in pictures that have preceded this one. Nueces Bay and Corpus Christi are now above the vehicle's nose, and the rivers flowing into the gulf and the ship channel from Aransas Pass are distinctly shown. Small cumulus clouds dot the area of the mouth and valley of the Rio Grande,

and the cumuli ranging inland can be seen to have in- creased somewhat since the photo that immediately preceded this one was taken, about 90 minutes earlier. From an orbiting spacecraft, a given area can be ob- served repeatedly at regular intervals, as well as seen from a variety of angles helpful to students.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 14, 1966 S66-63060

239

The gulf coast from Port Arthur, Tex., at the lower left, to Florida, on the horizon, is shown here. From Vicks- burg. Miss., near the upper left edge, to the Gulf, the Mississippi River is visible. Between the altostratus clouds in the foreground and rows of cumulus over Louisiana and Mississippi, you see Atchafalaya Bay and the con-

tinental shelf offshore that has been tapped for oil. An anticyclone was centered over North Carolina and an upper air trough was over the Mississippi Valley the day of this photo. West of the river, the winds at an altitude of 18 000 feet were from the northwest; east of it, they were from the southwest.

GEMINI IX JUNE 3, 1965 S66-37909

240

The "bird's foot" in the lower center here is the Mis- sissippi River deha. Lake Pontchartrain is left of it. Rows of cumulus clouds obscure New Orleans and much of southern Mississippi. The long embayment is Mobile Bay, and the Florida peninsula is near the horizon. Off- shore bars from Gulfport, Miss., to Apalachicola, Fla.,

are prominent depositional features. The Mississippi pours great quantities of fine sediment into the gulf. Changes in the color of sediment-laden water off the delta show that the longshore currents were westerly, and light spots reveal the wakes formed around offshore drilling rigs.

GEMINI IX JUNE 3, 1966 S66-379I0

241

Thunderstorms were imbedded in the cloudiness over northern Texas at the upper left in this photo ahead of a cold front advancing southward. The gulf south of Louisiana reflected early-morning sunlight. The con- trail from a jetliner near Shreveport left a thin line near the center, and ground fog in valleys of eastern Louisi-

ana and Mississippi produced other bright, irregular lines. A line of cumulus clouds lay parallel to the shore, and smoke plumes showed that winds north of it were northerly. This picture shows how vividly pollution can be seen in photos taken from high altitudes.

GEMINI XI SEPTEMBER 14, 1966 S66-54560

242

Color infrared film was used for this and the next photo, and coastal sands brighten the shoreline. Pensacola is at the lower left here, Birmingham near the top, the Chat- tahoochee River in the upper right, and St. Andrew's Bay in the lower right. Tyndall Air Force Base is a light rectangle on the peninsula below the bay. A residue on

the spacecraft window degraded this photo's center. Light bands in the upper left are Upper Cretaceous coastal plain clastic sediments overlapping the edge of the Appalachians north of Selma and Montgomery. Sinkholes north of St. Andrew's Bay mark the location of Miocene and Pliocene limestones.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 7, 1965 S65-64052

243

Those long blue plumes in this infrared photo are the smoke from forest fires southwest of Tallahassee, Fla. They are drifting over the Gulf of Mexico. The hook- shaped sand bar in the foreground encloses St. Joseph Bay. Panama City is to the left. From Lake Seminole in the upper left, the Apalachicola River flows south to the

bay above the hook. The long blue line to the right of the reservoir is Lake Talquin and you can see the Talla- hassee airport runways near its upper end. The vegeta- tion on the swampy tidal flats is reddish in this picture and a narrow band of gray marks the extent of this coastal land.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 7, 1965 S65-64053

244

Cumuliform clouds frame Florida's tip and 150 miles of the keys off it in this picture. The Dry Tortugas are at the far left, Key West near the center, and Key Largo near the top. Sediment-laden water is streaming across the bays and a turbid tongue is visible in the channel that separates the Dry Tortugas from the calcareous

platform of the Florida and Marquesas Keys. Islands dot the reef between the Marquesas and Key West. South- east of Key Largo, part of the long, submerged coral reef has been reserved as an underwater park. Sediments form- ed the southern edge of the mainland, and there is a band of mangrove swamps between it and the Everglades.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 13, 1965 S65-64024

245

The day the astronauts took this and the next four pic- tures, cumulus clouds covered the southern half of Flo- rida in an organized manner and a cold front was along the U.S. Atlantic coast on the horizon here. There were openings in the cumulus over Lake Okeechobee, Tampa Bay, and Charlotte Harbor, because such clouds usually

forni over land. Tampa was reporting southwest winds at 10 knots and Miami had southeast winds at 5 knots. A long, narrow band of cirrus clouds near the Jetstream lay over the frontal zone in the distance. The space- craft was docked with its Agena target vehicle and approaching Florida from the west.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66-62897

246

Strong surface winds were creating turbulence in the shallow waters ofT southwest Florida as the spacecraft neared the peninsula and the astronauts recorded the view eastward toward the Little Bahama Bank. Tampa Bay is at the left and the Florida Keys are in the lower right. The turbulence was bringing fine, white, calcar-

eous muds into suspension, and muddy water from the coast spread across the western Florida shelf. Layers of stratocumulus covered Cape Kennedy on the eastern coast, and a cloud line bordering the edge of the Gulf Stream extended northeast over the Atlantic. Such a cloud line is frequently seen in this area.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1%6 S66-62900

247

In this photo the puffy cumuliform clouds to which the spacecraft door points are over southern Florida, and the clouds to the left overlay the Gulf Stream. There the northern portion of the Great Bahama Bank and the Little Bahama Bank off the east coast of Florida are clearly defined. This and the next photo are especially

interesting to the marine geologist and the cartographer because of the clarity with which they show the relation- ship of shallow calcareous sandbars in the Bahama Banks. Andros Island is in the upper center here. Bimini Island is on the near edge of a light-blue area below Andros Island, and other islands are left of it.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66-62903

248

This and the next picture are additional views of the cold-front cloudiness along the eastern coast of the United States that was first photographed while Gemini XII was over the Gulf of Mexico. The hatch was open and Astronaut Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., was engaged in ex- travehicular activity when this one was taken. Florida's

Atlantic coast from Cape Kennedy to Fort Pierce is vis- ible. So, too, at the right edge is the northeast part of the Little Bahama Bank. Offshore the line of cumulus is near the Gulf Stream. In the frontal zone the low-level cumulus streets are parallel to the winds. Note how a ropelike band of cirrus follows the cold front.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66-62905

249

The astronauts had crossed Florida and were out over the Atlantic again when they looked northward at the southeastern coast of the United States and photo- graphed the cold front there again. This front was a boundai-y region between the cool, dry air near the left horizon and the warm, moist air located to the right of

the large cloudy zone. Stratiform and cumuliform clouds in layers are likely to produce rain showers in the neigh- borhood of such a front. The Gemini flights ended in 1966, but weather satellites have continued to assist meteorologists studying the global movements of clouds such as these.

GEMINI XII NOVEMBER 12, 1966 S66-62911

250

Many details of the Atlantic coast of northern Florida and southern Georgia can be seen and related in the left half of this photo. The broad, dark, sinuous line starting at the lower left and continuing northward is the St. John River, which turns toward the sea at Jacksonville. Above this prominent stream is the St. Marys, the

boundary between the two States. Below the mouth of the St. John is the inlet to St. Augustine. Many small lakes are clearly visible inland just above the nose of the spacecraft. Photographs such as this can help students understand the patterns of land use, highways, and the water resources available to the increasing population.

GEMINI VII DECEMBER 5, 1965 S65-63824

251

This picture, taken with a Zeiss Sonnar 250-mm lens from an altitude of 140 miles, shows about 55 miles of the Atlantic coast of Florida, from Flagler Beach south to Allenhurst. The Intracoastal Waterway can be traced in it by small white dots. They are spoil heaps left by its dredgers. The break in the barrier beach, in the center

of the picture, is Ponce de Leon inlet. The city of Day- tona Beach is on the mainland to the left of it, and New Smyrna Beach is at the right. Thin cirrus clouds make parts of this photo look foggy, but highways, lakes, and other features familiar to Floridians are conspicuous.

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Cape Kennedy is on the tip of land slightly above the center here. The Florida Keys are a thin curving line at the lower left ; Lake Okeechobee is below an oblong hole in fine clouds. The light bands in the center of the State apparently follow outcrops of Bone Valley and Alachua formations. They are Pliocene alluvial formations. Hues

are similar to the west where Miocene Tampa limestone is found. A weak cold front extended across Florida when this photo was taken. Cumulus clouds hung be- tween it and the Great Bahama Bank at the right, and were photographed again from the same spacecraft about 90 minutes later.

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When this picture was taken, on the next revolution after the preceding photo, cumulus clouds had begun to form rows over Cape Kennedy in a northwesterly wind. Offshore the cumulus in a diagonal line through the center of this view had grown. Open cellular pat- terns persisted in the cloud field seaward of that line.

and tufts of cirrus crossed Florida's eastern coast north of Cape Kennedy. The bands of stratocumulus in the upper left were in the cooler air behind the cold front that lay across the peninsula's southern tip. Cape Ken- nedy was the starting point of the Gemini flights but not the terminus.

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It was late afternoon when this photo was taken, about 90 minutes after the preceding one, and the spacecraft was again near its starting point but proceeding around the world again. The Florida Keys are visible in the lower center. The wide zone of cumuliform clouds pass- ing diagonally through this picture marked the location

of the weak cold front that had been photographed during the two preceding revolutions. It was moving off the mainland. The Gemini astronauts obtained many more photos of the Earth than it was possible to include in this volume. All of them are now available for scientific use.

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APPENDIX A

The Gemini Flight Crews

i. HE photography presented in this volume and its companion volume, Earth Photographs from Gemini III, IV, and V, was made possible by the men who flew the spacecraft. These men were not professional photographers, but they were professional observers, recorders, and interpreters of scientific phenomena, as well as human beings appreciative of natural beauty. Thus, these photographs represent a combination of scientific and esthetic interests. Each of the flight crews was selected for a particular mission several months before the flight and underwent rigorous specific-mission training during the period between selection and launch. The training included not only instruction and practice in the use of the cameras and film but also briefings on the scientific background and purpose of the photo- graphic experiments planned for that particular flight, in addition to the engineer- ing and pilot training required for the mission.

The photographic coverage obtained on each flight was determined by a com- bination of flight objectives and flight duration, and, to a large- degree, by the weather conditions and cloud coverage. On nearly all of the flights, excellent coverage was obtained of various desert areas. Only once or twice, however, was the weather suitable for photography of the surface of some areas such as the Texas gulf coast region. Nearly all of the flights were at altitudes ranging from 100 to 200 statute miles. The exceptions were those of Gemini X and XI, during which excursions were made to 475 and 850 miles (741.5 nautical miles), respectively, using the Agena propulsion system. The higher altitudes reached pemiitted increased coverage of some areas; and the views obtained of India and Ceylon, in particular, were among the most startling examples of photography that I have seen.

The photography obtained in the Gemini program will stand as a lasting tribute to the flight crews' abilities and interest. The names of these men and the duration of their flights were :

Gemini III: Maj. Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom, USAF, and Lt. Comdr. John VV. Young, USN; 3 revolutions; 4 hours 53 minutes. Orbit approximately 100 miles by 140 miles.

Gemini IV: Maj. James A. (Jim) McDivitt, USAF, and Maj. Edward H. (Ed) White II, USAF; 62 revolutions; 97 hours 56 minutes. Orbit approximately 100 miles by 175 miles.

Gemini V: Lt. Col. L. Gordon (Gordo) Cooper, Jr., USAF, and Lt. Comdr. Charles (Pete) Conrad, Jr., USN; 120 revolutions; 190 hours 56 minutes. Orbit approximately 100 miles by 217 miles.

Gemini VII: Lt. Col. Frank Borman, USAF, and Comdr. James A. (Jim) Lovell, Jr., USN; 206 revolutions; 330 hours 35 minutes. Orbit approximately 100 miles by 204 miles.

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Virgil I. Grissom

GEMINI III

John W. Young

GEMINI IV

Edward H. White II

James A. McDivitt

GEMINI VI

Thomas P. Stafford

Walter M. Schirra , Jr.

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GEMINI VII

James A. Lovell

Frank Borman

Nell A. Armstrong

GEMINI VIII

David R. Scott

GEMINI IX

Thomas P. Stafford

Eugene Cernan

John W. Young

GEMINI X

Michael Collins

GEMINI XI Richard F. Gordon, Jr. Charles Conrad, Jr.

GEMINI XII

Edward E. Aldrin, Jr.

James A. Lovell

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Gemini VI: Capt. Walter M. (Wally) Schirra, Jr., USN, and Maj. Thomas P. (Tom) Stafford, USAF; 16 revolutions; 25 hours 51 minutes. Orbit approxi- mately 100 miles by 161 miles.

Gemini VIII: Neil A. Armstrong and Maj. David R. (Dave) Scott, USAF; 7 revolutions; 10 hours 42 minutes. Orbit approximately 100 miles by 169 miles.

Gemini IX: Lt. Col. Thomas P. (Tom) Stafford, USAF, and Lt. Comdr. Eugene A. (Gene) Cernan, USN; 45 revolutions; 72 hours 21 minutes. Orbit approximately 99 miles by 166 miles.

Gemini X: Comdr. John W. Young, USN, and Maj. Michael (Mike) Collins, USAF; 44 revolutions: 70 hours 46 minutes. Orbit approximately 100 miles by 167 miles, with one excursion to 475 miles.

Gemini XI: Comdr. Charles (Pete) Conrad, Jr., USN, and Lt. Comdr. Richard F. (Dick) Gordon, Jr., USN; 44 revolutions; 71 hours 17 minutes. Orbit approximately 100 miles by 177 miles, with two excursions to 850 miles.

Gemini XII: Capt. James A. (Jim) Lovell, Jr., USN, and Maj. Edwin E. (Buzz) Aldrin, Jr., USAF; 59 revolutions; 94 hours 34 minutes. Orbit approxi- mately 100 miles by 175 miles.

Robert E. Gilruth, Director, Manned Spacecraft Center, NASA

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APPENDIX B

Listings printed in italics appear in this volume. Identifications marked with an asterisk (*) are partially degraded.