5 star images by Landon Noll

Glory rings

View of a Glory on clouds over the Alps

Streets of Ghadames, Libya

A shaft of light descends from the level where women walk to the level where men reside when they are in town (Ghadames, Libya).

Sand dunes of the Sahara in Libya

Sunset over the Sahara

The light of the Sunset is cast over the sand dues of the Sahara in SW Libya.

Christmas Eve 2007 party

Laara Garcia

Xi'an China

Xi'an south gate and wall at night

Ahu Tongariki

Ahu Tongariki is the largest Ahu (stone platform) on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) supporting fifteen Moai (monolithic human figures carved from rock) including an 86 tonne Moai: the heaviest ever erected on the island. All the Moai here face sunset during Summer Solstice. The Poike volcano can be seen in the far background beyond the Moai. On the far left rises the Rano Raraku volcano whose stone quarry supplied Tuff (stone from compressed volcanic ash) for 834 of the 887 known Moai. Several red Pukao topknots can be seen in the left foreground. The Pukao are believed to represent dressed hair or headdresses of red feathers worn by chiefs. The Pukao is carved from a very light red volcanic stone called Scoria. The Scoria stone was quarried from a single source at Puna Pau. In the days before Ahu Tongariki was destroyed in civil war, Ahu Tongariki was the main center or capital of the Hotu Iti: the eastern confederation of the Rapa Nui. What remained of the Ahu was swept inland by a Tsunami in the 20th century. Ahu Tongariki was substantially restored in the 1990s by a team of archaeologists let by Claudio Cristino and Patricia Vargas. TQ 2010 memory book image 1 of 11

Shadows of the past

Be they standing or toppled, the Moai give us a hint of past events on Rapa Nui. Much of that past was lost due to war, plague, or burning of written records by missionaries. Oral traditions combined with modern archaeology allow us to glimpse into the mysteries of Rapa Nui and to speculate about the root causes of such destruction. TQ 2010 memory book image 10 of 11

Taha'a

Taha'a in the late afternoon from the Paul Gaugiun

Bora Bora House

Living on the water in Bora Bora, French Polynesia

Mists of Nuka Hiva

High up on a coastal ridgeline on the island of Nuka Hiva in the Marqueses

Ice Dunes of Antarctica

Ice, stripped from blue ice near Union Glacier Antarctica, piles into sand line dunes.

Mt. Rossman

The ice and shadow of Mt. Rossman

Sinking Antarctic rock

The sun warms a rock resting on the blue ice of Antarctica. The rock melts the Antarctic ice and begins to sink into the glacial depths.

Ice Falls in the Ellsworth Mountains

Ice from the polar cap of Antarctica falls through a gap in the Ellsworth Mountains onto Union Glacier.