Images

A wildfire near Soberanes Creek along the Pacific coast of California started July 22, 2016, and spread to over 86,000 acres one month later. Landsat images from July 13, July 29, and August 14 show the dramatic progression as active fire burns orange in the latter two scenes, and smoke appears as a blue haze.

On June 28, 2016, a 4,000-foot-high mountainside in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve collapsed, sending rocky debris equivalent to 60 million mid-size SUVs tumbling onto nearby Lamplugh Glacier.

Earth observation satellites help researchers confirm the presence of large plumes containing suspended sediments extending from hundreds of wind towers in the coastal waters of the North Sea southeast of England.

Landsat image taken in 1992 shows the Uinta Mountains east of Salt Lake City. The shades of dark green indicate healthy, undisturbed forest. Landsat image of the same area in 2010 captures the dramatic assault of mountain pine beetles. The dark red stains reveal widespread pine beetle destruction.

Massive defoliation caused by a severe outbreak of the European gypsy moth caterpillar during the spring and summer of 2016 across southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic was easily captured by the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager sensor from 438 miles in space.

In September 1964, Interior Secretary Stewart Udall successfully shepherded some of the most remote and rugged terrain within the continental United States into the jurisdiction of the National Park Service (NPS) with the creation of Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah.

The end of Kaskawulsh Glacier lies at a drainage divide. Before spring 2016, the majority of the glacier's meltwater flowed north by way of the Slims River into Kluane Lake, and from there into the Yukon River and to the Bering Sea.

Remotely sensed imagery of wildfires burning in the Siberia region of Russia shows the complementary possibilities of Landsat 8 and NASA's ASTER sensor aboard its Terra satellite.

Pre- and post-fire images acquired with shortwave infrared (SWIR), near infrared (NIR), and red bands on Landsat 8’s Operational Land Imager sensor reveal a significant, 14,442-acre burn scar within the park’s high country. The burn scar appears red in the June 23 image.

The expanding coal fields in Wyoming's Powder River Basin serve as prime examples of Landsat's ability to monitor land cover change related to industrial growth across the American landscape.

In the summer of 1988, a wildfire ravaged the world's first national park, consuming 1.2 million acres in and around the Greater Yellowstone Park ecosystem.

A massive wildfire on the Kamchatka Peninsula in far eastern Russia has consumed nearly 600,000 acres of boreal forest and tundra since late May 2016.

Heavy rains that began falling during Memorial Day weekend in late May 2016 pushed the Brazos River, 30 miles southwest of Houston, Texas, toward a near-record flooding stage that hasn’t been seen since 1913, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

This image from the European Space Agency's Sentinel-2A satellite offers a breathtaking view of Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon. It offers something equally important to park managers, scientists, and anyone else interested in land cover change—a view that is highly similar and complementary to Landsat acquisitions.

The surface level of Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona has fallen to a historic low as 16 years of ongoing drought in the American Southwest continue to impact the Colorado River Basin.

On May 18, 2016, a Landsat 8 acquisition of flood-ravaged Sri Lanka produced impressive imagery of swollen waterways.

Eleven days after a wildfire first sparked south of Fort McMurray in northern Alberta, Landsat 8’s Operational Land Imager (OLI) captured imagery of one of the most destructive infernos in Canadian history. The fire has burned an area approaching 600,000 acres.

Image of the Week: A massive wildfire burning near Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada, fueled by dry conditions and high winds, has destroyed 1,600 structures and forced more than 88,000 people to evacuate the area so far.

When the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded 30 years ago, on April 26, 1986, Landsat 5 was the first civilian satellite to confirm the disaster near Pripyat, Ukraine, in the agricultural heartland of the Soviet Union.  

Alaska surveying crew circa 1924 using alidade and plane table; transportation by dogsled. USGS photo files.

The 122nd Boston Marathon, the oldest annual marathon in the world, takes place on April 16, 2018. This Landsat 8 image shows the April landscape of eastern Massachusetts, before vegetation has greened up. The yellow line indicates the point-to-point route that the marathon follows.