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A massive Sahara Desert dust cloud is drifting 5,000 miles over the Atlantic towards the US - and experts have warned it could bring extreme heat while impacting air quality in five southeastern states.Skies over Florida, along with southern swathes of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, will look 'a little hazy' and could turn brown from the sandy plume as it lingers over the weekend. Along with haze, the desert dust will catalyze scorching temperatures of around 105 degrees in the Sunshine State and an uptick in allergies - but it will also bring brighter sunsets and suppress tropical thunderstorms,...

A massive dust storm originating from the Sahara Desert in Africa has covered parts of Western and Central Europe this week. Strong winds from Storm Celia whipped up sand from the northwest coast of Africa and blanketed much of Portugal, Spain, and France, transforming skies into eerie shades of blood orange, worsening air quality, and leaving a layer of dust on everything. On Tuesday, the European Environment Agency said dust concentrations in Spain were five times over their recommended limit for air quality. “Air quality is recognized as being vital to human health as high concentrations of dust can have...

[R]esearchers at MIT have analyzed dust deposited off the coast of west Africa over the last 240,000 years, and found that the Sahara, and North Africa in general, has swung between wet and dry climates every 20,000 years. They say that this climatic pendulum is mainly driven by changes to the Earth's axis as the planet orbits the sun, which in turn affect the distribution of sunlight between seasons—every 20,000 years, the Earth swings from more sunlight in summer to less, and back again. For North Africa, it is likely that, when the Earth is tilted to receive maximum summer...

Up to 16 inches of snow has fallen on an town in the Sahara desert after a freak winter storm hit the area on Sunday. This is the third time in 37 years that the town of Ain Sefra in Algeria has seen snow cover the red sand dunes of the desert. Snow started falling in the early hours of Sunday morning and it quickly began settling on the sand. While the town saw an inch or two, the sand dunes on its outskirts were covered in snow.

For the first time in 40 years, snow has fallen on the Sahara Desert, the Independent reported Wednesday. […] “In his images [Karim Bouchetat, an amateur photographer who captured images of the snow on Monday], a thin layer of snow rests on deep orange dunes, where he said it stayed for about a day, and forms whirling patterns where the slopes are too steep for it to settle. Snow was reportedly last seen in Ain Sefra in 1979, when a half-hour snowstorm stopped traffic,” the Independent stated in its article. …

Explanation: What on Earth is that? The Richat Structure in the Sahara Desert of Mauritania is easily visible from space because it is nearly 50 kilometers across. Once thought to be an impact crater, the Richat Structure's flat middle and lack of shock-altered rock indicates otherwise. The possibility that the Richat Structure was formed by a volcanic eruption also seems improbable because of the lack of a dome of igneous or volcanic rock. Rather, the layered sedimentary rock of the Richat structure is now thought by many to have been caused by uplifted rock sculpted by erosion. The above image...

Today's two images are inspired by the "learn something new every day" phenomenon. In this case, the something that was learned was about the Northwest Angle in Minnesota, pictured here (click to go to article, with larger image link). I wanted to find other images of the Northwest Angle, but couldn't find much. However, I did find the interesting site below, with a virtual tour and smallish excerpts from a Landsat poster of Lake of the Woods. The image below was interesting, especially the circularity of the features in the lower part of the image. A Virtual Tour of Lake...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 October 28 Earth's Richat Structure Credit: Landsat 7, USGS, NASA Explanation: What on Earth is that? The Richat Structure in the Sahara Desert of Mauritania is easily visible from space because it is nearly 50 kilometers across. Once thought to be an impact crater, the Richat Structure's flat middle and lack of shock-altered rock indicates otherwise. The possibility that the Richat Structure was formed by a volcanic...

Richat Structure, Mauritania This prominent circular feature in the Sahara desert of Mauritania has attracted attention since the earliest space missions because it forms a conspicuous bull’s-eye in the otherwise rather featureless expanse of the desert. Described by some as looking like an outsized ammonite in the desert, the structure [which has a diameter of almost 50 kilometers (30 miles)] has become a landmark for shuttle crews. Initially interpreted as a meteorite impact structure because of its high degree of circularity, it is now thought to be merely a symmetrical uplift (circular anticline) that has been laid bare by...

Mark Borda and Mahmoud Marai, from Malta and Egypt respectively, were surveying a field of boulders on the flanks of a hill deep in the Libyan desert some 700 kilometres west of the Nile Valley when engravings on a large rock consisting of hieroglyphic writing, Pharaonic cartouche, an image of the king and other Pharaonic iconography came into view. Mr Borda would not reveal the precise location in order to protect the site... "The consensus among Egyptologists is that the Egyptians did not penetrate this desert any further than the area around Djedefre's Water Mountain. This is a sandstone hill...

TRIPOLI, Libya - Hijackers in Sudan's wartorn Darfur region seized a jetliner carrying nearly 100 people, including local Darfur officials, and forced it to land at a World War II-era airfield in the heart of the Sahara Desert in neighboring Libya, officials said. A Libyan official at the remote Kufra airport said there were 10 hijackers belonging to a Darfur rebel group and were demanding enough fuel for the Boeing 737 to continue to France. -snip-

Largest ever field of impact craters uncovered 10:00 07 November 04 The discovery of the largest field of impact craters ever uncovered on Earth is the first evidence that the planet suffered simultaneous meteor impacts in the recent past. The field has gone unnoticed until now because it is partially buried beneath the sands of the Sahara desert in south-west Egypt. Philippe Paillou of Bordeaux University Observatory in Floirac, France, first noticed circular geological structures in the Sahara last year, while analysing radar satellite pictures of the area. The structures turned out to be part of a huge field of...

GLOBAL JIHAD17 of 32 kidnapped tourists rescuedEuropeans abducted in Sahara by al-Qaida-linked terror group Posted: May 14, 200311:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com Algerian army commandos rescued 17 European tourists abducted while trekking across the Sahara Desert by an al-Qaida-linked Islamic terrorist group, but authorities fear for the fate of 15 others still captive. As first reported by by WorldNetDaily's premium online intelligence newsletter, Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, six separate groups of adventure tourists – 16 Germans, 10 Austrians, four Swiss, a Dutchman and a Swede – vanished along with their all-terrain vehicles and motorbikes between mid-February and March. They were believed...

Soldiers assigned to the 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) in Stuttgart, Germany, are training African soldiers along the outer reaches of the Sahara Desert in support of the global war on terrorism. Special Forces training teams from Special Operations Command Europe are in Bamako, Gao and Timbuktu, Mali; and Atar, Mauritania in northwestern Africa to provide foreign internal defense training for the Pan Sahel Initiative, a U.S. State Department security assistance program. "We're training basic platoon level tasks to one company of the 33rd Parachute Infantry Regiment in Bamako in order to enhance their capabilities to police their...

VIENNA, Austria -- An Austrian man who was among 17 Europeans taken hostage by Islamic extremists in the Sahara Desert said Friday that he had recently received a friendly call from his main captor, who was concerned about his well-being. Ingo Bleckmann, a 60-year-old from Salzburg who was held for nearly two months before being freed in May, said the unnamed Algerian man called him at his home to express remorse for his actions. "At 6 a.m. the phone rang," Bleckmann said in an interview on state television. "He was pleased to hear that all the former hostages are doing...

Germany paid a ransom as high as 15 million euros (16.5 million dollars) to kidnappers of 14 European hostages, released from nearly six months' captivity in the Sahara desert, sources close to the negotiations said. "There was no way out of the situation," a source told AFP in the Malian capital. "The hostage-takers insisted (on being paid)." "That was the only thing holding up freeing the hostages, a week before they were liberated. Berlin had to give in," the source added. The exact amount was not revealed, but varying sources said it amounted to between three and 10 billion CFA...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Kidnappers who have held 14 European tourists hostage in the Sahara desert for the past five months are demanding a ransom of 4.6 million euros (3.2 million pounds) for each one, German television reports. The hostages -- nine Germans, four Swiss and one Dutch national -- were among 32 European tourists seized by armed rebels in a remote area of southern Algeria, famous for ancient grave sites but also known for arms and drugs smuggling. Negotiations were under way with the kidnappers through an intermediary, but no quick release was expected, N-TV quoted unnamed diplomats in Mali...

Berlin - A German woman held hostage for months with 14 other European tourists by Algerian Islamic extremists in the Sahara desert has died of heatstroke. Relatives of the woman, a mother of two, were notified by the German Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, according to German TV network ARD. The kidnappers are believed to have buried the woman, who was not named, in the Algerian desert several weeks ago. German authorities believe the hostages had been taken over the border to Mali, confirming accounts in Algerian newspapers on Tuesday. ARD quoted German security sources as saying that attempts to have...

THERE was confusion over the fate of 15 Europeans being held hostage by Islamic militants in the Sahara Desert last night, after Algerian officials said they had been freed, only for the claim to be immediately denied by the country’s military. The hostages - ten Germans, four Swiss and a Dutchman - were abducted in mid-February while on an adventure tour in a remote region of the Sahara. According to military sources, the hostages were freed by Algerian commandos. There were reports that there had been gunfire and casualties during the operation. A group of 17 hostages was freed last...

<p>ALGIERS, Algeria -- The last 15 European tourists held by armed rebels in the Algerian Sahara desert for up to three months have been freed, a military source told Reuters.</p> <p>It was not immediately known if they were freed in a commando operation, as in the case of the 17 other tourists hostages freed last week after a gun battle with al Qaeda-linked guerrillas.</p>