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The Alvord Desert centers in the image, bright white and low lying compared to the surrounding landscape. To the upper left is Steens Mountain, the peaks are covered in white snow, but the valleys sprawling away are covered in a deep green foliage. There is more deep green foliage along the left side of the Alvord Desert, just above Alvord lake at the bottom left and just above the low point of Alvord Desert. The surrounding land is a neutral brown with Big sand gap on the right edge of the Desert. Sporadic white tone earth is spread across the region to the right of Big Sand Gap and another bright white area is labeled Coyote Lake.

Whirling Dust and Ancient Floods

Now a flat and dusty desert playa, Oregon’s Alvord Desert once held an expansive lake that was the source of catastrophic outburst flooding.

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