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ISS016-E-6986

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Identification

Mission: ISS016 Roll: E Frame: 6986 Mission ID on the Film or image: ISS016
Country or Geographic Name: USA-COLORADO
Features: GREAT SAND DUNES NATL. PARK
Center Point Latitude: 37.8 Center Point Longitude: -105.5 (Negative numbers indicate south for latitude and west for longitude)
Stereo: (Yes indicates there is an adjacent picture of the same area)
ONC Map ID: JNC Map ID:

Camera

Camera Tilt: High Oblique
Camera Focal Length: 800mm
Camera: E4: Kodak DCS760C Electronic Still Camera
Film: 3060E : 3060 x 2036 pixel CCD, RGBG array.

Quality

Film Exposure:
Percentage of Cloud Cover: 10 (0-10)

Nadir

Date: 20071026 (YYYYMMDD)GMT Time: 163001 (HHMMSS)
Nadir Point Latitude: 33.3, Longitude: -105.3 (Negative numbers indicate south for latitude and west for longitude)
Nadir to Photo Center Direction: North
Sun Azimuth: 139 (Clockwise angle in degrees from north to the sun measured at the nadir point)
Spacecraft Altitude: 182 nautical miles (337 km)
Sun Elevation Angle: 34 (Angle in degrees between the horizon and the sun, measured at the nadir point)
Orbit Number: 3152

Captions

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, Colorado

The Sangre de Cristo Mountains of south-central Colorado stretch dramatically from top left to lower right of this astronaut photograph. The mountains are outlined by dark green forests at lower elevations and white, snow-capped peaks at the highest elevations. Dun-colored dunes, covering an area of 80 square kilometers, are banked up on the west side of the mountains. These dunes make up the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Originally established in 1932 as a National Monument, it was reauthorized as a National Park in 2004. The park contains dunes over 227 meters (about 750 feet) high—among the highest in North America.

Sand grains that make up the dunes are small enough to be moved along by the wind (a process known as saltation), although much of the dune field is now anchored by vegetation. Winds blow predominately to the east, so that sand in the San Luis Valley (part of which appears at image lower left) is driven towards and piled against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The sand of the dunes is mostly derived from ancient exposed lakebed sediments—now the floor of the San Luis Valley—that formed by erosion of rocks in the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan Mountains (located to the west). The action of streams and occasional storms today returns some of the impounded sand back to the valley, where the prevailing winds begin the sand’s migration to the dune field anew.

The dune field has settled in a low spot along the Sangre de Cristo Mountains; the location of snow cover shows the relative altitudes of the mountains. Areas to the north of the dune field (Cleveland Peak and northward), and to the south around Blanca Peak, are higher than the ridgeline next to the dune field, where almost no snow is visible. Since winds are preferentially channeled over the lower parts of any range (hundreds of meters lower here than ridgelines to north and south), sand grains are carried up to, but not over, the low point of the range.

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