SPACEPHOTOS

Few signs of human activity appear in this desert photograph of southeastern California. Recognizing and mapping various dry lakebeds with their highly reflective surfaces and dark, small mountains provide the only method for navigation through such landscapes. The section of Interstate Highway 10 that connects Blythe and Indio, California, is visible as a thin, dark line in the upper left section of the photograph. A few isolated, rectangular field patterns are discernible north of the highway and west of Palen Lake, a dry lakebed. This is also the approximate location of Desert Center, a very small desert town. Several rectangular fields and a thin line, which is probably a railroad right-of-way, indicate the approximate location of Cadiz, another small desert town north of Desert Center, near the lower right edge of the photograph.