Lighthouse Reef Atoll, Great Blue Hole, ALI Image
Surrounded by darker, deeper ocean waters, coral atolls often glow in vibrant hues of turquoise, teal, peacock blue, or aquamarine. Belize’s Lighthouse Reef Atoll fits this description, with its shallow waters covering light-colored coral: the combination of water and pale corals creates varying shades of blue-green. Within this small sea of light colors, however, lies a giant circle of deep blue. Roughly 1,000 feet across and 400 feet deep, the feature is known as the Great Blue Hole. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 satellite captured this image of the Great Blue Hole and Lighthouse Reef in the Caribbean Sea on March 24, 2009. The Great Blue Hole appears at the center of the image, surrounded by a ring of lighter color caused by elevated coral. Along its easternmost edge, the reef crests the ocean surface, where breaking waves from the Caribbean Sea form a jagged line of white. Boats traveling to and from the Great Blue Hole attest to its popularity as a diving site. Believed to be the world’s largest feature of its kind, the Great Blue Hole is part of the larger Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Size: 3233px × 4800px
Location:
Photo credit: © Science History Images / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 2009, 21st, ali, atoll, belize, blue, caribbean, century, coral, earth, erosion, feature, features, formation, formations, geologic, geological, geologically, geology, geoscience, great, heritage, hole, image, lighthouse, observation, planetary, reef, science, sea, site, topography, twenty, twenty-, unesco, world
