Dry Sea Shipwrecks

Dry Sea Shipwrecks is an original illustration set in Aral Region, Uzbekistan. It lies in mid-latitudes, where the climate is cold desert — arid, with freezing winters.

Rusted fishing ships stand stranded upright and tilted on open desert sand, far from any water. White salt-crust patches and hardy saltbush spread across the flat ground. Low dunes have begun to build against the hulls under an autumn evening sky.

Why are these ships sitting on dry ground?

The ships are the measurement: they are sitting on what was a seabed, so the shoreline has retreated by a distance you can see. That happens when the rivers feeding a closed inland sea are diverted for irrigation and evaporation is left unopposed. The salt crust is what the water left behind, and saltbush is the only thing that will grow in it.

Terpano is a free daily geography puzzle. You study one original illustration, place a pin on a borderless terrain map, and see how close you were. There is no account and no sign-up; progress stays in your own browser. It plays in 11 languages.