Sundays Overseas: Origin of the Falls

So why does the Zambesi River 'Fall' into such a deep, narrow crack in the Earth?

Well it literally IS falling into a crack in the 180 million year old basalts that cover the area.  Part of the East Africa Rift System.  As these basalts cooled they formed cracks or fissures.  These weak zones are preferentially eroded to form the Falls.  This is the most recent of perhaps 5 earlier water falls that have formed in the area, having an estimated age of about 100,000 years.

Saturday's Online: Our World in Photos

Just some eerie photos from some not too friendly hot springs in the Rift Valley of Ethiopia:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2013/08/23/hottest_place_in_the_world_dallol_is_a_boiling_salty_landscape_hostile_to.html

Below, a more inocuous hot spring experience in Panama, at Los Pozo:

Frequented by the locals as a natural 'hot tub'  the bumpy ride in makes a hot soak at the end a good idea.  Buth then you have to drive out again!

Victoria Falls Overflight #4: Over the Brink

You also get some interesting angles and perspectives when you fly over........

Victoria Falls Overflight #3: On the Brink

Victoria Falls Oveflight #2: The Zambesi River

An upstream view of the Zambesi River just above the Falls:

Sunday's Overseas: A Hazy View of a Country with an Equally Hazy Future?

My Visit to Zimbabwe in 1998 only included the region around Victoria Falls.  Here below a hazy view of the Town of Victoria Falls from our overflight:

By the way, I highly recommend taking an overflight whenever possible........Gives you an entirely different perspective.  This week we'll look at more from the Overflight.

Saturday's Online: Apollo Mission Photos In the Public Domain

NASA has made many serious mistakes.  Stupid stuff like losing the original film of Neil Armstrong's first steps on the Moon.  The entire film of that mission disappeared, the 40th Anniversary only salvaged because CBS had transferred their video to film and had saved it.   Other bright moments include losing Moon rocks........and we won't linger on their very bad record of killing astronauts........

So when they do something right we should take note, especially when it involves film archiving.

So NASA has scanned all of the thousands of Hasselblad images from all of the Apollo missions.  They are on line and in the public domain:

You can revisit these heroic days of NASA Lunar exploration (or see it for the first time if you hadn't been born yet).

Read all about it here:

http://petapixel.com/2013/07/21/check-out-these-hi-res-hasselblad-film-scans-from-every-single-apollo-mission/

And view to you hearts content here:

http://www.apolloarchive.com/apollo_gallery.html


And if you are looking for some used Hasselblad cameras, remember that the Astronauts had to leave them on the Moon to reduce weight for their return.  Any takers?