SPACEPHOTOS

Water dominates this northwest-looking photograph of metropolitan New Orleans and the surrounding region—to the south and southeast is a mixture of lakes and marshlands; the meandering, muddy main channel of the Mississippi River winds through New Orleans and the surrounding flat wetlands; immediately north of New Orleans lies large, shallow Lake Pontchartrain with an average depth of 12 feet (3.6 meters), east of which is Lake Borgne and west of which is Lake Maurepas that flows into Pontchartrain. Sediment plumes appear throughout Lake Pontchartrain and along the southeast shoreline of Lake Maurepas. Visible are two interstate highway systems—Interstate Highway 55 that runs between Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas and Interstate Highway 10, the major east-west route that connects New Orleans with Slidell to the northeast and Baton Rouge to the northwest. Discernible are the 24-mile (39-kilometer) causeway that connects New Orleans with communities along the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain and a shorter causeway along the eastern side of the lake.