From last week’s unusual desert landscape to this week’s lush valley in Cuba…
The picture shows the Vinales Valley, a karstic depression with mogotes in western Cuba. Karst is the general term for landscapes formed when limestone is disolved by carbonic acid, in rain water. This leads, in particular, to the formation of an underground network of caves and rivers.
In the tropics, due to the heavy rains, the dissolution is fast. The ground collapses above the caves and the karst landscape may evolve to mogotes, which are isolated and steep-sided limestone hills; visible in this week’s featured image. Mogotes can also be found in Eastern Asia, for instance in Halong Bay (Vietnam) or Bohol Island (‘Chocolate Hills’) in the Philipines.
By Alexis Merlaud, Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy
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