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Geology News
Satellite Images Current Events

Google maps has a “street view” option that provides pictures of many locations. These allow you to see a location just like you were standing on the street corner. This News.com article reports that Google has cars equipped with laser scanners collecting the data for the improved 3D street views.

Check Out Times Square, New York City

A collection of images, maps and summary information related to Cyclone Nargis that struck Myanmar (Burma) on May 2, 2008.

A collection of resources for the recent eruption of Chaiten Volcano in Chile. Included are maps, satellite images, news items and background. Chaiten erupted for the first time in about 9000 years last week resulting in the evacuation of thousands of people and significant financial loss.

Earth Observatory has a track map for Cyclone Nargis that shows its location and intensity between April 28 and May 4. A color overlay shows rainfall totals from the storm. As of May 7, 2008, the number of people killed was estimated at more than 22,000, according to news reports citing the Myanmar government, with twice that many people still missing and feared dead.

Satellite Images of Cyclone Nargis Flooding

Chaiten Volcano is pumping out such an intense amount of ash that its plume visibly extends on satellite images from Chile, across Argentina and over the Atlantic Ocean. Earth Observatory has natural color and infrared images of the plume.

Chaiten Volcano Resource Page

Chaitén Volcano in southern Chile erupted on May 2nd for the first time in over 9000 years with a plume of ash and steam that reached altitudes of over 15 kilometers. Earth Observatory has a satellite image showing the eruption plume drifting into neighboring Argentina.

Chaiten Volcano Resource Page

NASA Image

An archive of NASA news releases, image galleries and articles on a variety of topics related to planetary geology, earth observation, global climate change, monitoring volcanoes, looking beyond our solar system, monitoring the oceans and more. A few of the most popular ones are:

• Monitoring Volcanoes from Space
• Photograph of Avalanches on Mars
• Glacial Sediments Add to Louisiana Coastal Subsidence
• Satellite Images of Marine Phytoplankton Blooms
• Sahara Dust Storms Lower Sea Surface Temperatures
• Satellite Measures Pollution From East Asia to North America

By studying the landscape around the Chesapeake, NASA spacecraft such as Landsat, Terra and Aqua are helping land managers figure out how to battle the harmful pollutants that have added to the destruction of the bay’s once legendary productivity. Many of these harmful pollutants come from the Chesapeake Bay’s watershed, an area of about 64,000 square miles that covers parts of six states.

Early this month there was significant flooding on the White River of Arkansas. These two Landsat images, available in greater detail at Earth Observatory, clearly show the extent of the flooding on April 7th, 2008 (top image) compared to April 14th, 2006 (bottom image).

This has been an exceptional year for flooding in this area. The river reached its fifth highest crest of 33.78 feet on April 19, 2008, and its sixth highest crest of 33.04 feet on March 29, 2008.

Google Earth / WVDEP

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has a KML file that any visitor to their website can click and view permitted mining areas as a Google Earth layer. The pubic can now view them superimposed on satellite images and click icons to get detailed information on the company and mining operation. Just a few years ago, anyone who wanted this information had to travel to a state office and view it on paper. This is a cost effective and convenient way to share public domain data that is already in a GIS format.

This image shows the plume of haze curving over the water’s surface. Underneath the plume, much of the water appears blue-green, thanks to the Sea’s shallow northern depths. To the south the sea is a dark blue.

India’s Lonar Crater began causing confusion soon after it was identified in 1823 by a British officer named C.J.E. Alexander. However, scientists established Lonar’s status as an impact crater based on several lines of evidence, perhaps the most compelling being the presence of maskelynite.

In a new NASA study, researchers taking advantage of improvements in satellite sensor capabilities, offer the first measurement-based estimate of the amount of pollution from East Asian forest fires, urban exhaust, and industrial production that makes its way to western North America. (NASA Image)

In a dramatic distress case yesterday, NOAA satellites helped the U.S. Coast Guard respond to a major engine room fire aboard the merchant vessel M/V Sea Venus 1,200 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusets.

This is an article that highlights how Madagascar’s Ministry of Environment, along with the University of Maryland and NASA, have developed a fire alert system to monitor fires in near real-time. The system sends subscribers email alerts on newly-detected burning, in the future will also be used to monitor road building and illegal logging.

Earth Observatory has a satellite image of a dust storm in the Taklimakan Desert. It shows beige plumes near the desert’s edge, especially in the southwest. Most of the white areas in this image are snowcaps on the nearby mountains.

NASA satellites collect images and data to monitor worldwide volcanoes. In addition to satellite images, they have sensors to detect heat, sulfur dioxide and small changes in the shape of earth’s surface. Here’s a collection of images that show different types of volcano monitoring.

NASA’s Earth Observatory website has a new image of several fires that are currently burning along the southern coast of Victoria, Australia.

“Using data from the SCIAMACHY instrument aboard ESA’s Envisat environmental satellite, scientists have for the first time detected regionally elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide – the most important greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming – originating from manmade emissions.” Quoted from the NASA release.

Earth Observatory has an interesting satellite image of Saharan dust blowing northward over the Mediterranean Sea then turning east and blowing over the Black Sea. It is surprising how the plume stays intact all the way to the Black Sea, even with a direction change.

“Vog” is a shortened version of “volcanic smog”, a mix of ash and steam from an erupting volcano. Earth Observatory has a satellite image of vog extending from the eruption of Kilauea on the island of Hawaii.

Popular Science website has an interactive on the GeoEye satellite that will capture high resolution images of earth from about 400 miles up.

Earth Observatory has a satellite image of the Serra da Cangalha impact crater of northern Brazil. This 220 million-year-old crater is in sedimentary rocks that are about 300 million years old. It is Brazil’s best preserved impact crater.

Phytoplankton are microscopic plants that grow in the sunlit surface waters of the ocean. When enough phytoplankton grow in one place, the bloom can be seen from space. This collection of NASA images features worldwide phytoplankton blooms.

“A NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars has taken the first ever image of active avalanches near the Red Planet’s north pole. The image shows tan clouds billowing away from the foot of a towering slope, where ice and dust have just cascaded down.” Quoted from the NASA release.

The Google Earth Blog has a post that summarizes some of the data that the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has made available for use in Google Earth. They also provide links to important data locations at NOAA and to previous Google Earth Blog posts that describe available data.

Here is an interesting article at MSN that explores some of the more important things that have been done with orbiting satellites - especially related to Earth observation and the environment.

Twin satellites are used to make precise measurements of gravity-field changes on Earth. The data has been used to establish the rapid loss of ice mass from Greenland and Antarctica, and major changes in water storage in China’s Yengtze River.

Earth Observatory has a very interesting satellite view of the Belcher Islands Archipelago. This is an outcrop of folded and resistant metamorphic rocks that are about two billion years old that protrudes from Hudson Bay.

Scientists in Queensland, Australia are using Landsat images to map the geographic distribution of lantana, one of Australia’s most damaging weeds.

China might use one if it’s environmental resources satellites to monitor natural disasters, both in China and in other parts of the world. A number of other countries are very interested in obtaining this information from the Chinese satellites.

NASA Image

A spacecraft of about 20,000 pounds and the size of a small bus is falling out of orbit. As in the past, with objects such as SkyLab, they tend to burn up upon reentry and cause no damage to people on the ground. In this case there is some concern about “secrets” and “hazardous cargo”.

NASA Image

Ocean surface currents play a major role in determining weather, climate and transportation challenges. ESA plans to employ a new radar technique to study the currents from space. They hope to obtain information about ocean current strength, variability and influence on climate change.

NASA Image

A lot of scientists believe that NASA’s plans to send manned missions to the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars are inappropriate. Many of them believe that the real focus should be on Earth science.

IBCAO Image

Satellite bathymetry is a method of determining ocean depths from orbiting radar altimeters that observe variations in sea surface height relative to the reference ellipsoid.

I am always amazed with how common and how far the dust clouds swept off or Africa and Asia can travel. Earth Observatory has a new MODIS image of three prominent dust plumes and numerous smaller ones over the Red Sea.

Earth Observatory has a satellite image pair of snow on the ground in Iraq. On January 11, Baghdad saw its first snowfall in nearly 100 years. It did not accumulate in the city but out in the higher elevations some accumulation was experienced and shown in these images.

NASA image of the Alps

The United States government acquires lots of satellite imagery with “spy satellites”. These images are collected for national defense and intelligence purposes. At present, scientists are able to access some of them by making a request to a USGS committee. However, the fate of that committee is uncertain. The restricted access photos are often used now to study sudden volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, floods, and other natural processes.

Chile’s Llaima Volcano erupted on New Year’s day, producing a heavy ash column. NASA has been able to track the sulfur dioxide plume released from the volcano with their Ozone Monitoring Satellite. It’s amazing how they can detect the chemistry of the air from space. Their image is shown at Earth Observatory.

NASA Image

The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides twice-daily satellite images of the United States and many other parts of the Earth. These are downloadable and for many areas resolutions of 2 kilometers, 1 kilometer and 250 meters per pixel are available.