EPOW Ecology Picture of the Week -- The Red Sands of Algeria

Explanation: Can you believe that this landscape of parched, wind-sculpted sand dunes is a remnant of old marine deposits, and that the Sahara Desert was once under the ocean during the Mesozoic Era? And during the late Mesozoic -- the later Cretaceous Period -- it was occupied extensively by shallow lakes and wetland vegetation ... and by bizarre creatures. To look at it today is to marvel at how the Earth and its climate and its fauna have changed so very much.

Welcome to central Algeria in north Africa ... land of the dinar, Suuni Islams ... and the amazing Sahara Desert.

The vast shifting dunes of Algeria conjure another amazing place that is not of this world ... the shifting dunes of Mars. Compare this week's EPOW photos especially with this amazing image of Martian sand dunes, and this image taken by the Martian rover Opportunity.

The name Sahara dates back to 1613, and derives from the Arabic çahra meaning "desert" and the adjective asharu meaning "yellowish red." And so it fits.

EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week