Images

Paired images for East Timbalier Island (Louisiana) showing land mass difference over time.

Cattle roam and forage across Montana’s wide-open spaces, with the beef
industry fueling the State’s economy. Landsat data are used to help guide
decisions on invasive species management, like controlling cheatgrass. Montana
researchers also use Landsat satellite data to map persistent snow and ice cover
in Glacier National Park.

Paired images for East Timbalier Island (Louisiana) showing land mass difference over time.

South Dakota is home to the fabled “Black Hills.” Seen from a distance, these pine-covered hills, rising several thousand feet above the surrounding prairie, appear black.

Capital Pierre

Image Source Landsat 8

Population 886,667

Tourists are drawn to the Texas coastline, but it is a frequent target of hurricanes.
Landsat documents storm damage and long-term coastal changes. Landsat data
are also used to study the urban heat island effect, helping communities identify
hotspots where human lives are at risk of heat-related illnesses. Because nearly

A large outbreak of gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar) caterpillars attacked the hardwood forests of the northeastern United States in 2016. A fungus (Entomophaga maimaigaM) introduced from Japan has kept gypsy moth populations at relatively low levels since the late 1980s.

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.

In 1934, the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire’s White Mountains experienced a wind gust of 231 miles per hour, the highest surface wind speed ever recorded. 

Capital Concord

Image Source Landsat 8

Population 1,377,529

In the Landsat 8 image acquired on December 9, smoke is carried west by strong winds, which also continued to spread fire through the dry terrain, mountain passes, and canyons. The diagonal lines are an airplane contrail and its shadow cast on the ground.

As Hurricane Sandy made landfall on October 29, 2012, the storm’s waves and wind cut a breach in a narrow part of Fire Island, a barrier island south of Long Island, New York.

Residents had little warning when wildfires that ignited late Sunday night, October 8, 2017, were fanned by wind gusts of 50 miles per hour and blasted across California's wine country. More than 100,000 acres have burned as of October 11, with less than 6 percent of the fires contained.

USGS researcher Todd Burton prepares a UAS with a mounted lidar sensor

At the request of the National Park Service in October 2017 the NUSO utilized UAS to acquire geospatial data to support development of a flood management plan for the Fort Laramie National Historic Site in Wyoming. 

Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica has snapped off its share of icebergs in recent years. The frequency of noteworthy breaks is evidence that the ice shelf is becoming increasingly fragile. The latest iceberg cracked off the end of the Pine Island Glacier ice shelf around September 23, 2017.

This pair of Landsat 8 images shows the large-scale damage done to Puerto Rico. The lush green landscape in the 2016 image is replaced by a faded green. The strong winds stripped the leaves off trees to cause the degraded landscape. The forest is expected to recover.

In September 2017, Landsat 8's Operational Land Imager (OLI) Landsat 8 captured this image of a large phytoplankton bloom in Lake Erie, near Toledo, Ohio. 

Hurricane Irma crossed the Florida Keys the morning of September 10, 2017, as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 130 miles per hour. Besides damage done to structures on the islands, the storm also stirred the waters.

The dramatic changes to the island caused by Irma, the strongest Atlantic hurricane on record, are shown in this pair of images from Landsat 8. Landsat uses shortwave-infrared, near-infrared, and green wavelengths to reveal those changes. The August 27 image shows healthy vegetation as bright green.

Extensive flooding inundated the Gulf Coast of Texas after Hurricane Harvey made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on August 25, 2017. Among the many waterways in southeastern Texas that exceeded flood stage was the Brazos River, which flows past Houston to its west and to the Gulf of America at Freeport.

Landsat 8 captured this image of Lake Erie during a harmful algal bloom event on September 26, 2017. 

A new rift has been forming on Petermann Glacier, Greenland, throughout 2017. An older crack to the right of the new rift also seems to be extending toward the glacier's center. If this new rift meets up with the older crack, and an iceberg breaks off, it would be Petermann's third massive iceberg calving since 2010.

Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the Gulf Coast of Texas as a Category 4 hurricane on the night of August 25, 2017. It then stalled over southeastern Texas as a tropical storm and continued to creep northeast over Louisiana.