Multimedia Gallery

Unlike the South Pole, the geographic North Pole does not lie on a land mass. The Earth’s northern axis of rotation is in the Arctic Ocean, covered by shifting sea ice.

Landsat does not image the North Pole, which makes it an imperfect investigative tool for the detection of Santa’s workshop. 

It does, however, collect imagery over North Pole, Alaska, a small

In the 5th edition of Earth as Art, we continue to display the Earth as our eyes cannot see it—in creative combinations of visible and infrared light. 

These unreal views of farmland, coastlines, and snowscapes remind us of the powerfully artistic qualities of Earth’s land features.

Download these images for free at 

Lake Meredith National Recreation Area takes its name from the water body it surrounds in the Texas Panhandle. The Amarillo-area lake sees more than a million visitors a year.

Visitor numbers were much smaller just a few years ago. More than a decade of drought shrank water levels at Lake Meredith until a rush of rain in 2017 brought a turnaround.

Each week,

Route 66 was established in November 1926. Named “The Mother Road” by John Steinbeck, the route is a cultural icon of America, symbolizing mobility and freedom.

We mark the route with this satellite mosaic and a combination of historical aerial photos and current aerial imagery from the USGS EROS Center archive.

Each week, the Earth Resources Observation and

Antarctica’s interior is circled by glacial ice flows that move outward from the frozen continent’s surface.

Imagery collected over Antarctica by satellites like Landsat is typically marked by highly reflective snow and ice, but isolated pockets of wind-swept glacial ice glow with a distinct blue.

Each week, the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS)

Satellites have captured views of the numerous major fires burning in California.

An image acquired on November 9, 2018, from NASA’s MODIS sensor on the Terra satellite shows smoke pouring out of two major fires, the Camp Fire and the Woolsey Fire, which both ignited the day before.

In the north, the Camp Fire quickly became the deadliest wildfire in the

Another large iceberg recently broke off Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica. According to the U.S. National Ice Center, this iceberg, named B-46, has an area of 87 square miles. That’s slightly larger than the iceberg that previously separated from the glacier in September 2017.

B-46 broke away on October 29, 2018, just a month after a rift first appeared. The October

In September 2011, the largest dam removal project in U.S. history began. 

Two dams built on the Elwha River in the early 1900s created two reservoirs in northwestern Washington. They also greatly reduced the amount of sediment flowing to the river’s delta and blocked salmon migration upstream into Olympic National Park.

Each week, the Earth Resources

USGS/EROS Physical Scientist Dean Gesch and USGS/EROS CoNED Applications Project Chief Jeff Danielson discuss different remote sensing methods they used to create topobathemetric elevation models of the Majuro Atoll.
 

Hurricane Michael made landfall in the Florida Panhandle on October 10, 2018.

Landsat 7 images captured before and after highlight the destructive path of the Category 4 storm.

Mexico Beach was all but demolished, with homes left in heaps by wind and storm surge. The green leaves that pop in the September image are stripped from trees by October, and the dull

October 16, 2018, marks the two-year anniversary of the Cottonwood Fire in western South Dakota. The fire consumed a large swath of grassland near the community of Wall and just north of Badlands National Park.

Thanks to low relative humidity, and high winds and temperatures, the fire spread quickly. It burned 41,360 acres by the time it was 100 percent contained

In southern Germany, autumn is synonymous with beer.

Around six million people visit the Bavarian city of Munich each year for Oktoberfest, a celebration of suds that coincides with the hops harvest.

The world’s largest continuous hops-growing region by area is Hallertau, just north of Munich. More than 80 percent of Germany’s hops come from this 42,000-acre

Hurricane Florence hit the Carolina coast on September 14, 2018, but it took much longer for the full impact to emerge.
Remotely-sensed images show the slow devastation that 13 trillion gallons of rain can bring as it moves back toward the sea.
Each week, the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center highlights a new satellite image(s) featuring

The Galapagos Islands, isolated in the eastern Pacific Ocean, lie about 1,000 km off the coast of Ecuador.

This Landsat 8 mosaic combines four images from March of 2015. The islands were formed by volcanoes, some of them still active. Volcanic craters and lava flows dominate the islands along with dense green vegetation.

Each week, the Earth Resources

On September 25, 2018, a team of three scientists based at the USGS–Cascades Volcano Observatory conducted the first-ever USGS-led Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) campaign at Mount St. Helens. The UAS survey was conducted with the permission and coordination of the U.S. Forest Service Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

The team used a multi-rotor UAS (“

On September 25, 2018, a team of three scientists based at the USGS–Cascades Volcano Observatory conducted the first-ever USGS-led Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) campaign at Mount St. Helens. The UAS survey was conducted with the permission and coordination of the U.S. Forest Service Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.

The team used a multi-rotor UAS (“

For this native South Dakotan, a love for math and a college trip to EROS in Sioux Falls, SD led to overseeing USGS's Landsat operations including the upcoming 2020 launch of Landsat 9. Read Jennifer's story and other #womeninscience stories at https://bit.ly/2D1RHk5

Ponderosa pine forests in the Black Hills of South Dakota are the focus of this week’s USGS Image of the Week.

Mountain pine beetles are about the size of a grain of rice, so of course we can’t see them from space in satellite images. What is visible is what the beetles can do to a pine forest. The washed-out pink color indicates large areas of standing dead or

Many lakes in South Dakota’s Prairie Pothole Region are expanding. 

Lake Thompson in eastern South Dakota is one that has displayed remarkable change in recent decades.

Each week, the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center highlights a new satellite image(s) featuring striking changes in the Earth's surface. Our images come from locations

USGS Hydrologist Molly Maupin and USGS Research Physical Scientist Gabriel Senay discuss how Landsat imagery has been used by the National Water Census and in studying water use trends.
 

This short video provides a quick look at the Application for Extracting and Exploring Analysis Ready Samples (AppEEARS). AppEEARS provides a simple and efficient way to subset, transform, and visualize geospatial data distributed from a variety of federal archives. AppEEARS can be accessed by visiting https

Landsat 8 captured satellite views of California’s largest wildfire on record in the summer of 2018. The Mendocino Complex Fire in northern California is a combination of two fires: the Ranch Fire and the River Fire. 

Both fires started July 27, and hot, dry, windy conditions caused them to spread rapidly. Landsat 8 imaged the area the day before the fires broke out

Torrential rainfall swamped western Japan in July of 2018. The rain caused mudslides that flooded cities, damaged buildings and rattled the
nation’s infrastructure. More than 170 people died.

At the USGS EROS Center, we study land change, operate the Landsat satellites, and maintain the longest, continuously acquired collection of images of the Earth's land

Black rats were unintentionally introduced to Hawai’i in the late 1800s, most likely as hitchhikers on trading vessels. Since their introduction, they have disrupted native ecosystems by destroying native plants, eating native arthropods, and depredating bird nests. Black rats have contributed to population declines and species extinctions of Hawaiian forest birds, and

Black rats were unintentionally introduced to Hawai’i in the late 1800s, most likely as hitchhikers on trading vessels. Since their introduction, they have disrupted native ecosystems by destroying native plants, eating native arthropods, and depredating bird nests. Black rats have contributed to population declines and species extinctions of Hawaiian forest birds, and

What it takes each day to keep Landsat 7 operating smoothly. Hear the stories from inside the L7 Mission Operation Center.
 

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Status of Kīlauea Volcano, 10:00 a.m. HST, June 21, 2018. Liz Westby, USGS Geologist

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Status of Kīlauea Volcano, 10:00 a.m. HST, June 18, 2018, Liz Westby - USGS Geologist

USGS Hawaiian Volcan Observatory, Status of Kīlauea Volcano, June 14, 2018, Jessica Ball, USGS Volcanologist.
 

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Status of Kīlauea Volcano

June 13, 2018, Jessica Ball, USGS Volcanologist

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Status of Kīlauea Volcano, June 12, 2018, Jessica Ball, Volcanologist

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Status of Kīlauea Volcano, June 11, 2018, Jessica Ball, USGS Volcanologist

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Status of Kīlauea Volcano, June 7, 2018. Jessica Ball, USGS Volcanologist.

This is a video compilation from a helicopter overflight of Kīlauea Volcano's lower East Rift Zone on June 6, 2018, around 6:30 AM. The video shows the fissure 8 lava fountain feeding a channelized lava flow that travels northeast around the Kapoho cone, and then flows toward the south to enter the ocean at Kapoho Bay and Vacationland. The ocean entry has completely filled

This is a video compilation from a helicopter overflight of Kīlauea Volcano's lower East Rift Zone on June 6, 2018, around 6:30 AM. The video shows the 

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Status of Kīlauea Volcano, 9:30am HST, June 6, 2018, Jessica Ball, USGS Volcanologist
 

U.S. Geological survey scientists use fly-overs to track active lava flows. 

U.S. Geological survey scientists use fly-overs to track active lava flows. 

This short video compilation shows conditions at Kapoho Bay during a helicopter overflight on June 4, 2018, around 6:15 a.m. HST and again around 1:38 p.m. HST. By 6:15 a.m., 

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory Update of Kīlauea Volcano for June 4, 2018. On Camera: Jessica Ball, USGS Volcanologist.
 

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory status of Kilauea volcano in Hawaii on June 3, 2018. On camera: Jessica Ball, USGS Volcanologist
 

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory status of Kilauea volcano in Hawaii on June 2, 2018, 9:00 AM HST. On camera: Jessica Ball, USGS Volcanologist
 

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory
Status of Kīlauea Volcano
June 1, 2018 
Jessica Ball, USGS Volcanologist

Tom Loveland talks about using Landsat's data for land use and land cover change research.

Find this video and thousands more at https://usgs.gov/gallery.

Stay up-to-date on USGS topics and news on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and more at https://usgs

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory status of Kilauea volcano in Hawaii on May 31, 2018.

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory status of Kilauea volcano in Hawaii on May 30, 2018. On Camera: Wendy Stovall, USGS Volcanologist

Everyday, a team of USGS scientists canvass areas along Kilauea Volcano’s east Lower Rift Zone.