Newly released topographic data sets from NASA and the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) provide twenty
first century explorers new ways to traverse the wonders of
Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and Madagascar.

Courtesy of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM),
African topography can be studied and understood as never
before. SRTM is a cooperative project of NASA, NGA, the
German and Italian space agencies.

The exotic and often harsh terrain portrayed in movies like
“Out of Africa,” “The African Queen,” and “Lawrence of
Arabia,” is shrouded in mystery to many Westerners. The vast,
often inaccessible territory has some of Earth’s most
diverse, extreme and breathtaking topography, much of it
hidden behind a veil of persistent cloud cover.

Dr. Michael Kobrick, SRTM project scientist at NASA’s Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., said the new
data are a hot commodity. “The demand for Africa and Arabia
digital elevation data is brisk. The data are being used for
varied applications such as studies of earthquakes, volcanism
and erosion patterns,” he said.

To embark on a safari of 12 new compelling images and a new
fly-around animation, visit: http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/africa.htm

The new data represents about one-fourth of the total from
the mission. The SRTM radar system mapped Earth’s topography
between 56 degrees south and 60 degrees north of the equator
in February 2000. The resolution of the data is three arc-
seconds, which is 1/1,200 of a degree of latitude and
longitude, or about 90 meters (295 feet). While that’s not
quite good enough to spot a snake in the Serengeti or corral
a Saharan camel, it’s more than enough to capture our
imaginations, and pique the interests of scientists.

“The shape of Earth’s surface affects nearly every natural
process and human endeavor,” said Dr. John LaBrecque,
manager, Solid Earth and Natural Hazards Program, NASA
Headquarters, Washington. “One interesting African
application is Mount Kilimanjaro. Its glaciers are rapidly
shrinking and expected to disappear soon, if the rates
continue. By combining satellite imagery with elevation data,
scientists can better monitor and understand environmental
changes,” he said.

Africa’s topography is diverse. The northern continent
consists of plateaus and basins, many of which filled with
sand and gravel to create the Sahara. The converging African
and Eurasian tectonic plates created the Atlas Mountains.
Africa’s central latitudes are dominated by the Great Rift
Valley, a geological fault system. To the west lies the vast,
shallow Congo Basin. Most of southern Africa rests on a
plateau comprising the Kalahari basin and a mountainous
fringe, skirted by a coastal plain that widens out in
Mozambique.

The Arabian Peninsula, the southwest part of Asia, split from
Africa about 30 million years ago. Abrupt cliffs along the
Red Sea and Gulf of Aden provide evidence of this massive rip
in Earth’s crust. The peninsula’s northeastward migration is
also evident in topography. It collides with the rest of Asia
to form mountains in Iran, and it slides past the
Mediterranean region to create the Dead Sea fault. At the
Dead Sea some stretching accompanied the sliding, which
created Earth’s lowest land elevation.

Previous SRTM releases covered Eurasia, North and South
America. The final release this summer will include
Australia, New Zealand and various islands. Together, these
data constitute the world’s first high-resolution, near-
global elevation model.

The NGA one arc-second (30 meters or 98.4 feet) data products
for the United States and territorial islands are also
available on the Internet, at: http://edc.usgs.gov/

NASA processed input into research-quality digital elevation
data. The NGA provides additional processing to develop
mapping products. The U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources
Observation Systems Data Center provides final archiving and
data product distribution. For information about SRTM on the
Internet, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm