Galapagos Islands Flyby

  • Released Friday, July 17, 2009
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Straddling the equator approximately 1000 kilometers to the west of the South American mainland, the Galapagos Islands lie within the heart of the equatorial current system. Rising from the sea floor, the volcanic islands of the Galapagos are set on top of a large submarine platform. The main portion of the Galapagos platform is relatively flat and less than 1000 meters in depth. The steepest slopes are found along the western and southern flanks of the platform with a gradual slope towards the east. The interactions of the Galapagos and the oceanic currents create vastly different environmental regimes which not only isolates one part of the Archipelago from the other but allows penguins to live along the equator on the western part of the Archipelago and tropical corals around the islands to the north. The islands are relatively new in geologic terms with the youngest islands in the west still exhibiting periodic eruptions from their massive volcanic craters.

Animated flyover of the Galapagos Islands
This video is also available on our YouTube channel.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, The SeaWiFS Project and GeoEye, Scientific Visualization Studio. NOTE: All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this web site are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye (NOTE: In January 2013, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye combined to become DigitalGlobe).

This page was originally published on Friday, July 17, 2009.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:54 PM EDT.

Missions

This visualization is related to the following missions:

Datasets used in this visualization

  • [Landsat]

    ID: 47
    Dates used: 30m true color
    See all pages that use this dataset

  • [SeaStar: SeaWiFS]

    ID: 100
    Sensor: SeaWiFS Dates used: 30m true color

    NOTE: All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this web site are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye

    Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, The SeaWiFS Project and GeoEye, Scientific Visualization Studio. NOTE: All SeaWiFS images and data presented on this web site are for research and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFS data must be coordinated with GeoEye (NOTE: In January 2013, DigitalGlobe and GeoEye combined to become one DigitalGlobe.).

    See all pages that use this dataset

  • Sea Surface Temperature [Aqua: MODIS]

    ID: 254
    Sensor: MODIS Dates used: 30m true color
    See all pages that use this dataset

  • DEM [SRTM: SIR-C]

    ID: 481
    Sensor: SIR-C
    See all pages that use this dataset

  • True Color [Aqua: MODIS]

    ID: 581
    Sensor: MODIS Dates used: Land color
    See all pages that use this dataset

Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.