Terkezi Oasis, Chad
A series of rocky outcroppings emerge from a blanket of sand in this 2000 Landsat 7 image of the Sahara Desert near the Terkezi Oasis in the country of Chad. As Earth’s largest band of dry land, the Sahara dominates the northern third of Africa. Stretching across this immense desert are vast plains of sand and gravel; seas of sand dunes; and barren, rocky mountains. Only 10,000 years
ago, grasses covered the region and mammals such as lions and elephants roamed the land. Now only 2 percent of the Sahara hosts oases, patches of land usually centered on natural water springs where crops will grow and people live.