This is neither an impact crater nor a volcano. It is a perfect circular
intrusion, about 10 km in diameter with a topographic ridge up to 600 m
high. The Kondyor Massif is located in Eastern Siberia, Russia, north of
the city of Khabarovsk. It is a rare form of igneous intrusion called
alkaline-ultrabasic massif and it is full of rare minerals. The river
flowing out of it forms placer mineral deposits. Last year 4 tons of
platinum were mined there. A remarkable and very unusual mineralogical
feature of the deposit is the presence of coarse crystals of Pt-Fe alloy,
coated with gold. This 3-D perspective view was created by draping a
simulated natural color ASTER composite over an ASTER-derived digital
elevation model.
The image was acquired on June 10, 2006, and is located at 57.6 degrees
north latitude, 134.6 degrees east longitude.
The U.S. science team is located at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, Calif. The Terra mission is part of NASA's Science Mission
Directorate.
