When viewed from space, the shoals, seagrass beds, and mudflats of Mauritania’s Banc d'Arguin National Park often blend with sand and sea in beautiful ways.

So it was on December 28, 2019, when the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured this natural-color image of the park’s shallow coastal waters. The mostly barren dunes on the shore drew a contrast with the maze of coastal mudflats (dark brown) and shallow seagrass beds (green) that grow beneath a few meters of water. Deeper channels (dark blue) meander and flow among the sea grass and sandy shoals.

While signs of life are rare on this mostly arid land, the upwelling of cool, nutrient-rich water offshore causes the park’s coastal areas to burst with marine life. Whales, dolphins, and seals all make appearances.

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Image via NASA Earth Observatory

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