Tibet is by far the planet’s largest mountain feature, and affects winds and seasons, deserts and rivers, people and metaphysics. The great rivers of Huang Ho, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween, Irrawaddy, Tsangpo-Brahmaputra, Ganges, Indus, and Amu Dar’ya all rise from its slopes, and support well over half of the world’s population. Shrinking glaciers render the critical… Read more »
Baluchi Ridges
In Baluchistan ridges curve continuously through the borderlands of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The lower Indus River floodplain fills the broad dune-flecked flats to the right, near a coast of scalloped promontories tipped with the vestiges of transverse ridges. Kandahar is at center top, while Quetta nestles in the high mountains to the right. These… Read more »
Cordillera
Wabash
Southern Rockies
Niobrara
Newzie
Santander
Slice of the Baltic
Sierra Nevada
Edge of a Continent
This early Earthpattern treatment of the US’s Mid-Atlantic region used cool colors to offset graphically a beige highlighting – this in turn made contrasts within the Allegheny Plateau with its lightning bolt valley incisions, and the ridge and valley folded hills of the more southeasterly highlands. Dark grays near the seashore suppress the lines of… Read more »
Lompoc
Transitions
St Croix
Grapefruit
Oaxaca
Greater Somalia
It used to be that the long slopes of this region were traversed by pastoralists in rhythm with seasonal cycles, so herds could take advantage of lowland wet-season production, and save the highland areas as dry season reserves. The post-colonial imposition of national boundaries made little sense ecologically. Chronic warfare has resulted in Eritrea, in… Read more »
Gaspe Peninsula
Lee’s Ferry
Albert Rift
The lake-filled trough is the western arm of East Africa’s Rift Valley system, and this segment is named for the lake in the upper right corner. These terrain systems are abrupt in their escarpments but subtle in their outer risings and in the long profiles of their highly various floors. There are also wonderfully unique… Read more »
Around the Alps
This view was framed to emphasize the graceful curve of the range, and its palette was designed to separate the elevation sequence of vegetative zones within the mountains. Lower areas were colored to balance the preponderance of greens higher up, and the coasts were given a subdued treatment so that the land features would stand… Read more »
Tocantins and Xingu
Bosporus
Bongolava
Tepui
Lac a l’Eau Claire
This view is within or near to the spawning ground for North America’s cyclical continental glaciations. At the top is Hudson Bay (north is right), and the curvy Belcher Islands are actually sea bottom which has risen up due to the un-weighting of the ice mass. The circular shore is straddled by prominent moraines, from… Read more »