Eye of the Sahara

It looks like a surrealist painting, but it’s actually a photograph taken by NASA. It’s not a formation on a distant planet though, this beautiful landscape is right here on Earth. This is the Richat Structure, sometimes called the Eye of the Sahara. Initially interpreted as an asteroid impact structure because of its high degree of circularity, it is now argued to be a highly symmetrical and deeply eroded geologic dome. Despite extensive field and laboratory studies, geologists have found a lack of any credible evidence for shock metamorphism or any type of deformation indicative of a hyper-velocity extraterrestrial impact. The sedimentary rock exposed in this dome range in age from Late Proterozoic within the center of the dome to Ordovician sandstone around its edges.