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Core Science Systems Mission Area

USGS CSS serves as the primary national civilian mapping agency, including topographic and geologic mapping for Federal and State requirements, national geospatial coordination, satellite operations and remote sensing. Our products and data are necessary to understand, monitor, and detect changes that affect the Nation’s natural and agricultural resources, the economy, public safety, and security.

News

Landsat’s 12 Millionth Image Showcases Distinct Landscapes

Landsat’s 12 Millionth Image Showcases Distinct Landscapes

Latest in Landsat January 2025 - Vol. 4 | Issue 1

Temporary Delay in Landsat Product Availability

Temporary Delay in Landsat Product Availability

Publications

ECCOE Landsat quarterly Calibration and Validation report—Quarter 2, 2024

Executive Summary The U.S. Geological Survey Earth Resources Observation and Science Calibration and Validation (Cal/Val) Center of Excellence (ECCOE) focuses on improving the accuracy, precision, calibration, and product quality of remote-sensing data, leveraging years of multiscale optical system geometric and radiometric calibration and characterization experience. The ECCOE Landsat...
Authors
Md Obaidul Haque, Md Nahid Hasan, Ashish Shrestha, Rajagopalan Rengarajan, Mark Lubke, Jerad L. Shaw, Kathryn Ruslander, Esad Micijevic, Michael J. Choate, Cody Anderson, Jeff Clauson, Kurt Thome, Ed Kaita, Raviv Levy, Jeff Miller, Leibo Ding

Segment anything model can not segment anything: Assessing AI foundation model's generalizability in permafrost mapping

This paper assesses trending AI foundation models, especially emerging computer vision foundation models and their performance in natural landscape feature segmentation. While the term foundation model has quickly garnered interest from the geospatial domain, its definition remains vague. Hence, this paper will first introduce AI foundation models and their defining characteristics...
Authors
Wenwen Li, Chia-Yu Hsu, Sizhe Wang, Yezhou Yang, Hyunho Lee, Anna Liljedahl, Chandi Witharana, Yili Yang, Brendan M. Rogers, Samantha Arundel, Matthew B. Jones, Kenton McHenry, Patricia Solis

Earth observation remote sensing tools—Assessing systems, trends, and characteristics

With the ever-increasing number of civil and commercial remote-sensing satellite launches in recent years, the Earth Observation community needs to better understand the quality of new data products as they become available for scientific research purposes.
Authors
Simon J. Cantrell, Jeff Clauson, Cody Anderson

Science

Eyes on Earth Episode 130 – NLCD Accuracy

Providing accuracy metrics for a land cover map takes some work. But there’s poetry and story involved, too.
link

Eyes on Earth Episode 130 – NLCD Accuracy

Providing accuracy metrics for a land cover map takes some work. But there’s poetry and story involved, too.
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Eyes on Earth Episode 129 – What Happens During a Landsat Pass?

For this episode, we go inside the Landsat operations room at EROS to see what happens during a live Landsat pass.
link

Eyes on Earth Episode 129 – What Happens During a Landsat Pass?

For this episode, we go inside the Landsat operations room at EROS to see what happens during a live Landsat pass.
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Geology of the eastern Piedmont and upper Coastal Plain along the Fall Zone, Virginia to Georgia

This USGS NCGMP Project aims to fill the void in geologic map coverage along the Fall Zone from southeastern Virginia to central Georgia, for critical mineral research, earthquake hazards, and interstate correlation. We are also forging strong cooperative ties within the NCGMP by combining resources across all three Program components by supporting Virginia Energy (Virginia Geological Survey), the...
link

Geology of the eastern Piedmont and upper Coastal Plain along the Fall Zone, Virginia to Georgia

This USGS NCGMP Project aims to fill the void in geologic map coverage along the Fall Zone from southeastern Virginia to central Georgia, for critical mineral research, earthquake hazards, and interstate correlation. We are also forging strong cooperative ties within the NCGMP by combining resources across all three Program components by supporting Virginia Energy (Virginia Geological Survey), the...
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