Sredinnyy Khrebet, Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia

The Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia is shown in this scene created
from a preliminary elevation model derived from the first data collected during the
Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) on February 12, 2000. Sredinnyy Khrebet,
the mountain range that makes up the spine of the peninsula, is a chain of active volcanic
peaks. Pleistocene and recent glaciers have carved the broad valleys and jagged ridges that are
common here. The relative youth of the volcanism is revealed by the topography as infilling
and smoothing of the otherwise rugged terrain by lava, ash, and pyroclastic flows,
particularly surrounding the high peaks in the south central part of the image. Elevations here
range from near sea level up to 2,618 meters (8,590 feet).

Two visualization methods were combined to produce this image: shading and color
coding of topographic height. The shade image was derived by computing topographic slope
in the north-south direction. Northern slopes appear bright and southern slopes
appear dark. Color coding is directly related to topographic height, with green
at the lower elevations, rising through yellow, red, and magenta, to white
at the highest elevations.