Flying to Burkina Faso

On Monday, January 13, we left Madera Island and flew across the Sahara desert to Burkina Faso. I gave a slide illustrated lecture along the way called, "An Introduction to Africa's Landscape". Unfortunately, I didn't see the Morocco landscape below me as I gave the lecture. But I did get to see one interesting feature while flying over Mauritania. This is the Richat Structure, also known as the eye of the Sahara desert. It was initially thought to be a meteorite impact structure, but further geologic mapping failed to show any impact minerals such as coesite. A short description can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richat_Structure and here: http://geology.rockbandit.net/2008/09/25/richat-structure-in-mauritania/. What a treat it was to fly over this and photograph it from 39,000 feet up.

Richat structure in Mauritania. The outermost rings are Ordovician-age limestone with Proterozoic rocks in the eye.

The Niger River in Mali