Above and Beyond: Tin Bider Crater

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with the NASA Earth Observatory.

All images, illustrations, and videos courtesy of NASA except:

·       Image of Antarctic snow dunes courtesy of Mark Fahnestock, University of Maryland, College Park

·       Sea creature illustration copyright The National Library of Israel, Shapell Family Digitization Project _and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Geography – Historic Cities Research Project

·       Image of clouds off Namibian coast courtesy of Chelys

·       Image of dunes in the Namib Desert courtesy of the USGS EROS Data Center Satellite Systems Branch

·       Namibian dune photo courtesy of Wikimedia user Alcazarfr

·       Photo of the Mandara Oasis in Libya courtesy of Rudolph Baumann

·       Photo of Astrophytum ornatum cactus courtesy of Wikimedia user Stan Shebs

·       Photos of desert plants courtesy of Wikimedia user Halfalah and Dr. Eric Christian (NASA)

·       Photo of fishhook barrel cactus courtesy of Susan Lynn Peterson

·       Photo of Ubari Oasis in Libya courtesy of Wikimedia user Sfivat

·       Image of alluvial fan in Takla Makan Desert courtesy of the USGS EROS Data Center Satellite Systems Branch

·       Photos of salt-covered croplands courtesy of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

 

Music courtesy of Associated Production Music

Written by Andrea Gianopoulos

Designed by Marc Lussier

(SPEECH)

[PIANO AND FLUTE MUSIC]

 

(DESCRIPTION)

Text, Tin Bider, Algeria

 

In the high desert of Algeria, at the southern end of a range of hills, is a 4-mile-wide impact crater called Tin Bider.

 

Tin Bider is a complex impact crater with several concentric rings that formed terraces as rock collapsed after the impact.

 

A lack of rainfall in this high desert environment has helped preserve the intricate terraces of this 70-million-year-old crater.