ndscape with lines dug by firefighters trying to cut off the fire.
In this 100th anniversary year of the National Park Service, new grass growing on charred ground at Guadalupe Mountains National Park is an important reminder that sometimes fire can be a good thing.
Kilauea, Mauna Loa Volcanoes Shape the Face of Hawaii August 1, 2016
Hawaii’s Volcanoes National Park reminds humanity that no matter how much it alters the face of the Earth to meet its needs, it has no control when nature decides to unleash its awesome, eruptive powers.
Though the park celebrates its 100th anniversary on August 1, 2016, its main attractions—Kilauea and Mauna Loa volcanoes—have been adding to the land mass of Hawaii’s “Big Island” for at least 400,000 years. That expansion continues today as bright molten lava from Kilauea flows downslope across the coastal plain on its south flank, spilling over a cliff on its way to a steamy transformation to hard rock in the Pacific Ocean.
The Operational Land Imager from Landsat 8, as well as NASA’s Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors, show that volcanic influence in several ways. MODIS captures the 1,700-mile stretch of the Hawaiian Islands that began to emerge from volcanic eruptions during the Quaternary Period beginning 2.588 million years ago. A mosaic of Landsat images from October 2015 and February 2016 reveals the extent of Kilauea’s and Mauna Loa’s presence on the big island of Hawaii, and ASTER zooms in even closer on the lava flows and tubes that channel descending lavas from the summit craters and fissure vents.
Even now, in this year of centennial celebrations for both Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and the National Park Service, imagery from sensors such as these will continue to show change with time. Kilauea and Mauna Loa are two of the world’s most active volcanoes. They will be adding land mass to the “Big Island" for years to come.
Water, Gravity Carve Out Magnificent Canyonlands July 26, 2016
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.
In this 100th anniversary year of the NPS, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 has acquired a stunning, false-color image that enhances the park’s irregular topography. No paved roads exist to join together the park’s three main districts—Island in the Sky, the Needles, and the Maze. The Horseshoe Canyon Unit is the detached part of the park in the upper left corner of the image.
In the high desert of the Colorado Plateau, countless canyons, mesas, and buttes have emerged over millennia from the eroding forces of water and gravity across the park’s 1,365 square kilometers (527.5 square miles). Perhaps the most accessible district is Island in the Sky, a relatively flat mesa that rises 600 meters above the Green River to the west and the Colorado River to the east.
The Needles District in the southeast corner of Canyonlands takes its name from the colorful spires of Cedar Mesa Sandstone that dominate the area. The least accessible district, the Maze, is a remote labyrinth of deep canyons set against a landscape of standing rocks above it.
But Canyonlands’ colorful beauty doesn’t end there. Landsat imagery captures the deeply cut meanders and oxbows carved out by ancestral rivers in the national park. It also reveals the distinct, circular Upheaval Dome on the northern border of Canyonlands, a formation that geologists say was either created by a meteorite impact or by the movement of salt layers deep underground.
Fire and Rebirth: Landsat Tells Yellowstone’s Story July 19, 2016
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. Landsat imagery became an important record of the burn severity and recovery.
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