Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

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  • Pan American highway in the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth. The series of roads connects North America to the southern tip of South America through a variety of landscapes. This desolate stretch of the road is south of Antofagasta, Chile.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187633.jpg
  • Two Sudanese children, an adult and a donkey in a desolate landscape.
    RANDY OLSON_MM6998_718258.jpg
  • Weathered landscape of the driest place on earth where a century can pass without recorded precipitation. Shadows fall in the Valley of the Moon in the Atacama Desert where wind has left an array of oddly shaped polychrome forms in the desolate, eroded, desert landscape.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187533.jpg
  • The volcanic landscape of Kamchatka with snowy peaks above the clouds in an aerial photograph.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260935.JPG
  • A full moon rises over the arid landscape glowing in pastels at twilight in Oregon's Alvord Desert.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705706.jpg
  • A lone hiker climb atop weathered desert sand landscape of driest place on earth. The Atacama Desert sometimes goes more than a century without recorded precipitation. The Atacama Desert is also considered the oldest desert on earth. On the whole, it has experienced semi-arid conditions for over 150 million years, and the inner core—the driest spot—has been hyper-arid for over 15 million years.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187540.jpg
  • Hikers follow a trail in the last light at dusk and climb to the top of weathered desert landscape for a view of the driest place on earth. The Atacama Desert sometimes goes more than a century with no recorded measurable precipitation. The Atacama Desert is considered the oldest desert on earth. On the whole, it has experienced semi-arid conditions for over 150 million years, and the inner core—the driest spot—has been hyper-arid for over 15 million years.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187536.jpg
  • Aerial view of Tau Island landscape.
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  • A double rainbow in a gray sky over a hilly Australian landscape.
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  • An aerial view of Australian landscape with hills, rivers, and rain.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7112_763233.JPG
  • Desolate beauty of the Valley of the Moon, from constant erosion. The weathered landscape is known as the driest place on earth and a century can pass without measurable precipitation. Shadows fall in the Atacama Desert where wind has left an array of oddly shaped polychrome forms in the desolate, eroded, desert landscape.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187554.jpg
  • Bunch grass clumps grow in the arid landscape near the El Tatio geysers in the Atacama Desert.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187551.jpg
  • Wind and water sculpted desert in the Valle de la Luna. Shadows fall in the Valley of the Moon in the Atacama Desert, the driest place on earth where the elements have left an array of oddly shaped polychrome forms in the desolate, eroded desert landscape. The region sometimes goes without recorded precipitation for more than a century.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187507.jpg
  • Vicunas live near the arid Atacama Desert in Reserva Nacional Salinas y Aguada Blanca. They survive eating nutrient-poor, tough, bunch grasses. Highly valued for their wool, vicunas are protected by law. The vicuna is the national animal of Peru and appears on the Peruvian coat of arms.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187564.jpg
  • A mirror image of El Capitan framed with fall leaves is reflected in water pooled along the Merced River in Yosemite National Park. Located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the spectacular granite landscape was formed over millions of years by forces of nature. Volcanic uplifts transformed into glacial valleys, canyons, domes, rivers and amazing waterfalls, with habitat supporting rare species of plants including ancient Giant Sequoia trees.<br />
<br />
During a stint managing California gold mines, Frederick Law Olmsted, was inspired by nature while in Yosemite. He was America’s first landscape designer and is best known for his plans for New York Central Park. He became enthralled with Yosemite Valley and its “placid pools which reflect the wondrous heights.”<br />
<br />
Advocating for its protection, he planted the seeds for the National Park System 25 years before it was designated. He suggested the road on the valley floor travel around the perimeter-not down the middle along the Merced River-which would have spoiled the view. He also planned the route that tourists travel today from the valley floor to the giant sequoia trees in the Mariposa Grove. Olmsted was appointed chairman of the Yosemite commission by the governor of California, and proposed that the valley floor and sequoia grove be set aside as a park—protected from development and left open for public enjoyment.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_968645.jpg
  • A mirror image of El Capitan framed with fall leaves is reflected in water pooled along the Merced River in Yosemite National Park. Located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the spectacular granite landscape was formed over millions of years by forces of nature. Volcanic uplifts transformed into glacial valleys, canyons, domes, rivers and amazing waterfalls, with habitat supporting rare species of plants including ancient Giant Sequoia trees.<br />
<br />
During a stint managing California gold mines, Frederick Law Olmsted, was inspired by nature while in Yosemite. He was America’s first landscape designer and is best known for his plans for New York Central Park. He became enthralled with Yosemite Valley and its “placid pools which reflect the wondrous heights.”<br />
<br />
Advocating for its protection, he planted the seeds for the National Park System 25 years before it was designated. He suggested the road on the valley floor travel around the perimeter-not down the middle along the Merced River-which would have spoiled the view. He also planned the route that tourists travel today from the valley floor to the giant sequoia trees in the Mariposa Grove. Olmsted was appointed chairman of the Yosemite commission by the governor of California, and proposed that the valley floor and sequoia grove be set aside as a park—protected from development and left open for public enjoyment.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_956185.jpg
  • An aerial photo shows the Niobrara River filled with fossil water flowing through farms and a wildlife refuge in Nebraska. Rich hues of green on the hillsides and fields at sunset create a scenic landscape.<br />
<br />
The Niobrara River is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 568 miles (914 km) long, running through the U.S. states of Wyoming and Nebraska.
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  • Fog rises from the base of the Straight Cliffs that rise up to the Kaiparowits Plateau in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The protected Bureau of Land Management monument spans across nearly 1.87 million acres of public land from the cliffs and terraces to geologic treasures of slot canyons, natural bridges and arches. It’s remote location and rugged landscape make it an extraordinary unspoiled natural area valued by biologists, paleontologists, archeologists, historians and those who love quiet creation and solitude. Grand Staircase was named the first national monument in 1996.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-44.JPG
  • Fog rises from the base of the Straight Cliffs that rise up to the Kaiparowits Plateau in Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The protected Bureau of Land Management monument spans across nearly 1.87 million acres of public land from the cliffs and terraces to geologic treasures of slot canyons, natural bridges and arches. It’s remote location and rugged landscape make it an extraordinary unspoiled natural area valued by biologists, paleontologists, archeologists, historians and those who love quiet creation and solitude. Grand Staircase was named the first national monument in 1996.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-43.JPG
  • The Paria Rivers snakes through the sandstone landscape north of the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument. Narrow slot canyons form along it from the waters that originate in the north side of the 112,500-acre Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area at the Utah/Arizona border. The aerial view helps explain erosion through geologic time.
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  • Delicate rock formations shaped by wind erosion overlook the Grand Canyon. The Navajo sandstone layer formed 190 million years ago in the early Jurassic period. Southern Utah was much closer to the equator and giant, wind-whipped sand dunes dominated the landscape. Polar ice caps melted and the climate changed forming an inland sea that covered the Southwest. Water seeped down into the sand, carrying minerals with a mineral composition of iron, calcium carbonate, and manganese which gave the rock warm colors.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705695.jpg
  • Cliffs and terraces and colorful layers of rock are illuminated on in an aerial photograph revealing the steps of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The wilderness area is one million acres of public land outside of St. George, Utah. Due to its remote location and rugged landscape, the monument was one of the last places in the continental United States to be mapped.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705693.jpg
  • Hiking along an overlook above a rocky shoreline on the Lost Coast in the King Range National Conservation Area (NCA).<br />
The King Range NCA encompasses 68,000 acres along 35 miles of California’s north coast. The landscape was too rugged for highway building, giving the remote region the title of California’s Lost Coast. It is the Nation's first NCA, designated in 1970.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705678.jpg
  • Aerial view illuminates light fog lifting above the waves on the coast of California's King Range National Conservation Area (NCA).<br />
The area encompasses 68,000 acres along 35 miles of landscape too rugged for highway building, giving the remote region the title of California’s Lost Coast. It is the Nation's first NCA, designated in 1970.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680969.jpg
  • A rushing stream flows through woods blanketed in snow in Niagara reservation that surrounds the area around Niagara Falls. Frederick Law Olmsted, America's first landscape designer, worked with both U.S. and Canadian officials to make a plan to preserve the natural beauty from logging and overuse.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_968648.jpg
  • A stately oak tree stands in the snow-covered grand meadow of Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York.  A symbol of strength and endurance, the oak can live 500 to 600 years and grow up to 100 feet if left undisturbed.<br />
<br />
Frederick Law Olmsted, America’s first and greatest landscape architect, planned the city’s system of six major parks and connecting parkways representing one of his largest bodies of work. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the system comprises seventy five percent of the city’s parkland. 
During the 1901 Pan American Exposition, Buffalo was celebrated not only as the City of Light, but the City of Trees.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_956193.jpg
  • Aerial  view of the Maze District where scenic rock formations of the remote terrain in Canyonlands National Park. 337,598 acres of colorful canyons, mesas, buttes, fins, arches, and spires are in the heart of southeast Utah's high desert. Water and gravity have been the prime architects of this land, sculpting layers of rock into the rugged landscape
    MELISSA FARLOW_06103_495891.jpg
  • Aerial view illuminates eroded slopes above the waves on the coast of California's King Range National Conservation Area (NCA).<br />
The area encompasses 68,000 acres along 35 miles of landscape too rugged for highway building, giving the remote region the title of California’s Lost Coast. It is the Nation's first NCA, designated in 1970.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-52.JPG
  • Three volcanoes, now dormant, formed Easter Island half a million years ago.  Rano Kau is the largest crater on the island with an aerial view from the mirador on the headlands. Inside is a lagoon of fresh water filling the crater that is almost a mile wide and 1,000 feet high above the Pacific Ocean in Rapa Nui National Park.
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  • Tourists are drawn to El Tatio, a geothermal field with geysers north of San Pedro at 4300 meters above sea level located in the Andes Mountains in the Atacama Desert.  More than 70 geysers and fumaroles spew hot water and steam as the sun rises in Chile near the Bolivian border.
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  • Snow blows across an icy, wintery back road in Steens Mountain as harsh weather comes to Oregon's high desert.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7517_1222778.jpg
  • Mysterious Nazca lines form geometric shapes in the desert that are best seen from the air. Besides animals forms, there are more than 800 straight lines on the coastal plain, some of which are 30 miles Anthropologists believe the Nazca culture, which began around 100 B.C. and flourished from A.D. 1 to 700.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187616.jpg
  • A lone tourist walks among the El Tatio geysers in the Atacama desert north of San Pedro at 4300 meters above sea level in the Andes Mountains. The world's highest geyser field has over 80 active geysers with a steaming field of boiling water that spews and sprays at sunrise leaving white mineral deposits.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187594.jpg
  • Young boy gallops at full speed riding bare back on a horse leaving clouds of dust in the barren, high-mountain Peruvian desert near Chauchilla.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187591.jpg
  • Tourists explore the salt flats near San Pedro, in the Atacama Desert. Salar de Atacama is surrounded by mountains, and has no drainage outlets. Water evaporates leaving small deposits of crusted salt.
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  • Farmland taken over by a goldmining corporation.
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  • Parched and windswept, a cactus stands at the top of Cerro la Raya and the overlook of the ancient city of Túcume in northern Peru. A significant Inca shrine, Túcume actually predates the Inca, its mud-brick pre columbian architectural ruins constructed some 900 years ago. At least 28 pyramids, plazas and crumbling walls made up the ceremonial center of the Lambayeque people (1000-1400 AD).
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187494.jpg
  • A brown bear wades into Kuril Lake to fish for salmon. Brown bears, also known as grizzlies thrive in Kamchatka’s still largely intact ecosystem.
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  • A braided river ecosystem snakes through the tundra and is used by salmon spawning.<br />
<br />
Salmon bring marine-derived nutrients from the Kamchatka shelf in the Sea of Okhotsk into the eight major river systems that run off the middle range of mountains that divide Kamchatka in half.
    RANDY OLSON_MM7593_1260934.JPG
  • A boat cuts through reflections of clouds in the placid waters of the St. Mary’s River in Southern Georgia. The St. Mary’s forms a division between Florida and Georgia as it flows east to the Atlantic Ocean out of the Okefenokee Swamp.
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  • Steens Loop Road passes through winter sun that warms grasses on the high desert in Oregon's Steens Mountain.
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  • The Cape Florida Lighthouse at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park.
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  • Two Pyrenees guard dogs herd sheep on the Wyoming range at sunrise.
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  • A band of wild horses roam the wide open spaces on Bureau of Land Management rangeland near Pilot Butte in western Wyoming.
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  • A band of wild horses follow single file to water as they roam the wide open spaces near Pilot Butte a unique formation that stands out in the high desert on public lands in western Wyoming.
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  • Autumnal view of one of the loops in the Buffalo River.
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  • Three volcanoes, quiet now, formed Easter Island half a million years ago.
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  • Three volcanoes, quiet now, formed Easter Island half a million years ago.
    RANDY OLSON_MM8059_1477354.JPG
  • A rancher on horseback accompanied by his dog drives a herd a sheep through the open range and grasses of the high desert in Oregon's Steens Mountain.
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  • Land yachts race the wind and each other across the Alvord Desert playa’s flat, dusty terrain. Fans of the sport flock to the ancient lake bed in search of speeds beyond most posted interstate highway limits. The world record stands above 116 mph. Sports enthusiasts race in high temperatures when the playa is dry enough to drive on.<br />
The desert lies to the east of Oregon's Steens Mountain, and Steen's Mountain Wilderness which is “the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin.”  It abruptly falls to the dry Alvord Desert 6,000 feet below.
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  • Blazing sunset leaves in shadow the famous gap in Kiger Gorge, atop Oregon's Steens Mountain. Steen's Mountain Wilderness is “the largest fault-block mountain in the northern Great Basin.”  The aerial view shows a forty mile long escarpment in southeastern Oregon has a notch cut out of the top and drops abruptly to the dry Alvord Desert, 5,500 feet below.<br />
Bulldozing down to basalt, Ice Age glaciers carved our huge gorges out of the Great Basin's largest fault block mountain. Beyond, Steens's east face plummets a vertical mile.
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  • Morning fog rises from the Upper Missouri River Breaks in Montana.
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  • A lone cyclist crosses the maritime chaparral of Fort Ord National Monument, once a bustling Army post on central California's Monterey Peninsula and now a Bureau of Land Management-run reserve for recreation and scarce native habitats. The coastal gem has 86 miles of trails to ride a bike or horse or hike through diverse habitats.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-51.JPG
  • A worker enters the front door of the Umiat Hilton, in the unincorporated community in the North Slope of Alaska that is located on the Colville River. Oil fields near Prudhoe Bay were opened and the Navy built Umiat in 1944. The small lodge located near an airstrip is reputedly the coldest place in Alaska.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-32.JPG
  • Morning fog fills the valley between snowy, white peaks of the stark and rugged San Juan Mountains. Shafts of silver, not sunlight, lured miners into Colorado's wilderness where now rugged trails form the Alpine Loop, a Bureau of Land Management back country byway with more than a glimmer of mountain splendor.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-25.JPG
  • Fog fills the valley surrounding snowy, white peaks of the stark and rugged San Juan Mountains. Shafts of silver, not sunlight, lured miners into Colorado's wilderness where now rugged trails form the Alpine Loop, a Bureau of Land Management back country byway with more than a glimmer of mountain splendor.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705729-24.JPG
  • Gossamer blossoms of pink farewell-to-spring flutter on slopes of the Carrizo Plain National Monument where wildflowers flourish amid remnants of California’s original grasslands.
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  • A small band of wild horses trots to join a herd as they graze in the high desert of western public lands.
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  • Morning fog in Sitka Sound in the Tongass National Forest.
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  • A herd of mustangs move across the grasslands as a summer storm builds over the high plains. It is believed that over two million wild horses roamed the largely unfenced American West in the 1900s.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7517_1222811.jpg
  • Mount Olympus and other snow-capped peaks in the Olympic mountains.
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  • Moss-covered rock surrounding a cascading stream.
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  • Mount Olympus and its sister peaks.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM7061_754677.jpg
  • Sunlight highlights aspen trees, Populus tremuloides, as their colors turn golden in the autumn. "Quaking aspen" is Colorado's signature tree in the high altitude of the San Juan mountains near Silverton. Aspens grow in large clonal colonies, derived from a single seedling. They spread by root suckers and new starts may pop up 100–130 ft from the parent tree. Each tree may live for 40–150 years, but the root system of the colony can be thousands of years old sending up new trunks as the older trees die off above ground.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705744.jpg
  • A dirt road cuts through a sagebrush sea to dark, cloudy skies of a distant, looming, rain storm. Sagebrush ecosystems cover vast stretches of western North America creating rangeland habitat for animals such as pronghorn antelope, black-tailed jackrabbits and sage-grouse.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705738.jpg
  • Blue ghostly, silhouetted mountains disappear into the distance of the vast and desolate million-acre wilderness of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument in Arizona.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_705735.jpg
  • Sandstone-capped escarpment glows in the setting sun in Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. The 280,000-acre wilderness is located at the Utah/Arizona border where the wooded Paria Plateau stretches south and  drops 3,000 feet at the monument’s namesake—the Vermilion Cliffs.
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  • Rain that never hits the ground, virga of low-lying clouds paints a dramatic sky above Steens Mountains, a 30-mile long massif in southern Oregon. Tail lights cresting a hill are barely visible on a single lane road shared by ranchers, miners, and recreational users.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680976.jpg
  • Shadows fall across Painted Hand Pueblo, a tower in Canyon of the Ancients National Monument, a treasure of Ansazi Indian ruins in Colorado. The 176,000 acres of federal land administered by the Bureau of Land Management includes 20,000 archeological sites.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6659_680975.jpg
  • Carrizo Plain is the largest remaining San Joaquin Valley grasslands as they existed in California 300 years ago. Cheat grass was introduced and has taken over much of the valley. The aggressive grass sprouts early in the season, dries out under hot summer sun and often catches fire.
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  • Spring view in Frederick Law Olmsted's Cherokee Park in Louisville designed in 1891. Flowering cherry trees mark the scenic loop along an open meadow providing a pastoral scene. Cherokee and other Olmsted parks are cared for by Olmsted Parks Conservancy.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_968649.jpg
  • Aerial over 409-acre Cherokee Park, designed in 1891 by Frederick Law Olmsted in the east side of Louisville, Kentucky. Baringer Hill in the spring is restored with newly planted grass and trees, is a popular gathering spot. The city and the Ohio River is in the distance.
    MELISSA FARLOW_MM6560_968640.jpg
  • Late day sun lights a meadow in Yosemite National Park. Glaciers carved the Sierra Nevada mountains and creating walls that frame a flat valley floor.  Trees and grasses provide a scenic setting in late fall before the first snows.
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  • The Tangle Lakes area contains reveries for paddlers.
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  • Scenic rock formations photographed at Orange Cliff Overlook in Island in the Sky in Canyonlands National Park. Orange Cliffs is applied to much of the eastward-facing cliffs, which are made of the Wingate Sandstone
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  • A young girl and her adopted wild horse stand by the water that flows from Cold Creek into a water hole.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2737117.jpg
  • A playful bachelor band of young studs mock battle building up their fighting moves.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2737098.jpg
  • A mare kicks up her heels after she is hit with a dart to control horse fertility by BLM Salt Lake Wild Horse and Burro Specialist.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2737086.jpg
  • Cowboys roll out jute setting up fences for a helicopter round up to remove wild horses from public land.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2737080.jpg
  • Storm clouds above a horse running along a ridge in the rural midwest.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_2728710.jpg
  • A car rounds a curve along a scenic section of the Pan American highway north of Oaxaca in Mexico.<br />
The Pan-American Highway is a network of road that passes through the America's many diverse climates and ecological types – ranging from dense jungles to arid deserts.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187636.jpg
  • Animal figures as well as geometric shapes are part of the mysterious Nazca lines best seen from the air in the Peruvian desert.  The figures--as well as triangles, rectangles and straight lines--run for several kilometers across the dry barren land. The desert floor is covered in a layer of iron oxide-coated pebbles of a deep rust color. The ancient peoples created their designs by removing the top 12 to 15 inches of rock, revealing the lighter-colored sand below. Anthropologists believe the Nazca culture that created them began around 100 B.C. and flourished from A.D. 1 to 700
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187622.jpg
  • Mysterious Nazca lines form animal and geometric figures seen from the air.  A hummingbird shape as well as perfect geometric designs like triangles, rectangles and straight lines run for several kilometers across the desert. The desert floor is covered in a layer of iron oxide-coated pebbles of a deep rust color. Anthropologists believe the Nazca culture that created them began around 100 B.C. and flourished from A.D. 1 to 700. The ancient peoples created their designs by removing the top 12 to 15 inches of rock, revealing the lighter-colored sand below.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187620.jpg
  • Hikers walking along the top ridge of a large dune in the Atacama Desert a region in north Chile that is considered the driest place on earth. Located between the Andes and Coastal mountains, the parched desert is formed by wind and erosion.
    MELISSA FARLOW_04526_1187547.jpg
  • A cloud-filled sky with rain falling in distance.
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  • Australian grassland with termite mounds.
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  • Aerials in Arkansas of the Buffalo River.
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  • The Sand Hills of Nebraska made of sediment eroded from the Rocky Mountains.
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  • Aerial of Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
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  • Aerial of Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
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  • Aerial of Kenya's Omo Delta near Ileret.
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  • Aerials of Lake Turkana.
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  • Sibiloi National Park on Lake Turkana.
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  • Algae grow in pools at the southern edge of Lake Turkana.
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  • Lake Turkana and the Omo River Delta.
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  • Lake Turkana and the Omo River Delta.
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  • A braided river ecosystem for salmon spawning. At the top of this photograph is the Sea of Okhotsk, and below it the Oblukovina River. They flow past wetlands created by heavy rain on the west side of Kamchatka. <br />
<br />
Wetlands are the primary sign of a healthy salmon ecosystem and clouds of mosquitoes form where insects are a main food source. Salmon create a mass migration engine that brings marine-derived nutrients into river ecosystems, and the carcasses fertilize the entire Pacific Rim.<br />
<br />
Salmon bring marine-derived nutrients from the Kamchatka shelf in the Sea of Okhotsk into the eight major river systems that run off the middle range of mountains that divide Kamchatka in half.
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  • Aerial view of a rain cloud over a snaking river.
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  • An aerial view of a meteor impact crater near the town of Halls Creek.
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  • Two Adirondack chairs on a scenic overlook.
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