Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center
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At the USGS EROS Center, we study land change and produce land change data products used by researchers, resource managers, and policy makers across the nation and around the world. We also operate the Landsat satellite program with NASA, and maintain the largest civilian collection of images of the Earth’s land surface in existence, including tens of millions of satellite images.
Eyes on Earth
The first in our series on the Landsat 9 launch features interviews with officials from various agencies on the value of the Landsat program.
Listen hereImage of the Week
Fissures opened on the Cumbre Vieja volcano on Sept. 19, 2021, marking its first eruption since 1971. Our latest video offers Landsat 8's view of the volcanic activity.
La PalmaNews
Drones, Mirrors, Gear Galore—Welcome to a Satellite Validation Event
An invasion of sorts took place recently in an alfalfa field in northeastern Brookings, SD.
It wasn’t an invasion of unwanted species—though it does ultimately help monitor environmental issues. Rather, the field bustled with drones in the air, angled panels of mirrors and pools of water on the ground, and people roaming the field with gear and wands.
Landsat 9 Reaches Orbit, Makes Ground Contact to Continue Legacy
Landsat 9 is functioning as expected after its successful launch at 1:12 p.m. CT Monday, Sept. 27, from Vandenberg Space Force Base to join its two predecessors in orbit.
The Earth-observing satellite separated from the Atlas V rocket at 2:34 p.m. and made contact about 80 minutes later with the ground station at Svalbard, Norway.
EROS, Landsat 9 Ground System Ready for Launch
The launch of Landsat 9 in late September of 2021 represents a major milestone for a five-decade partnership between NASA and the USGS that continues to set the standard for high-quality Earth observation.
Publications
The climate envelope of Alaska’s northern treelines: Implications for controlling factors and future treeline advance
Understanding the key mechanisms that control northern treelines is important to accurately predict biome shifts and terrestrial feedbacks to climate. At a global scale, it has long been observed that elevational and latitudinal treelines occur at similar mean growing season air temperature (GSAT) isotherms, inspiring the growth limitation...
Maher, Colin T.; Dial, Roman J.; Pastick, Neal J; Hewitt, Rebecca E.; Jorgenson, M. Torre; Sullivan, Patrick F. Simulated atmospheric response to four projected land-use land-cover change scenarios for 2050 in the north-central United States
Land-use land-cover change (LULCC) has become an important topic of research for the central United States because of the extensive conversion of the natural prairie into agricultural land, especially in the northern Great Plains. As a result, shifts in the natural climate (minimum/maximum temperature, precipitation, etc.) across the north-central...
Flanagan, Paul Xavier; Mahmood, Rezaul; Sohl, Terry L.; Svoboda, Mark; Wardlow, Brian D.; Hayes, Michael; Rappin, Eric
Earth Resources Observation and Science Center—Keeping watch over Earth's resources
The Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center is the largest facility of its kind within the U.S. Geological Survey. As both a science and data center, EROS serves a unique and critical role in shaping our understanding of a changing planet.EROS opened its doors in 1973 as a receiving station, data archive, and data distribution hub...