Earth As Art 4

A nearly perfect circle of forest delineates the boundary of Egmont National Park in New Zealand. Snow-capped Mount Taranaki marks the center of the park, which is surrounded by green farmland.

• Collection: Earth as Art 4
• Source: Landsat 8
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Water flowing out of this inland delta rarely reaches the ocean; instead, it seeps into the semiarid plains of northeastern Kenya. The dark feature in the upper left, which looks like a black eye, is hard basaltic rock from an ancient lava flow.

• Collection: Earth as Art 4
• Source: Landsat 8
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The Susquehanna River appears as a dark line coursing through this scene in southeastern Pennsylvania. The cities of York, Lancaster, and Reading lie among agricultural lands. The State capital, Harrisburg, is positioned against the orange folds in the upper left of the image, along the edge of the Appalachian Mountain Ridge and Valley Province.

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These cloud patterns cast eerie shadows on the landscape of southern Egypt. The clouds appear red and the desert below hazy blue in this infrared rendition.

• Collection: Earth as Art 4
• Source: Landsat 8
• Download: JPG 

Is this a black-and-white image? No, this is a natural color image of snow-covered southwestern Russia. Windbreaks, roads, and fence lines look like random pencil marks near the Volga River, which flows across the top of the image. The thick lines are trees planted to protect fields from dry wind and erosion; these windbreaks retain snow, allowing more moisture to

Marking part of the boundary between Colombia and Venezuela, the Meta River resembles an artery among capillaries within the human body. Those capillary-like features actually depict dense tree cover along the numerous streams that flow among rich tropical grassland.

• Collection: Earth as Art 4
• Source: Landsat 8
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Landsat 8 helps reveal the hidden complexities of the Antarctic landscape. In this image, ice takes on different levels of blue with exposed rock and dirt appearing in yellow tones. The dynamic Koettlitz Glacier flows between Brown Peninsula and the rugged mainland.

• Collection: Earth as Art 4
• Source: Landsat 8
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This Landsat image shows how glaciers scoured the landscape, gouging out depressions that formed linear lakes. The glaciers also exposed the complex folded rock layers that form the Labrador Trough of Quebec in Canada. Glacial action is evident in the fingerprint-like patterns.

• Collection: Earth as Art 4
• Source: Landsat 8
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Startling red patches sprout from an agricultural landscape that looks almost like a Cubist painting. The fields in this part of eastern Kazakhstan follow the contours of the land—long and narrow in mountain valleys, and large and rectangular over the plains.

• Collection: Earth as Art 4
• Source: Landsat 8
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When landmasses collide, rock layers can break. Geologists call these breaks "faults." Rock layers are offset in this image in western China, making the faults remarkably clear. The different colors indicate rocks that formed at different times and in different environments.

• Collection: Earth as Art 4
• Source: Landsat 8
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Geometric shapes lie across the emptiness of the Sahara Desert in southern Egypt. Each point is a center pivot irrigation field a little less than 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) across. With no surface water in this region, wells pump underground water to rotating sprinklers from the huge Nubian Sandstone aquifer, which lies underneath the desert.

• Collection: Earth as