Earth ID: 2008

Landsat 7 Looks at Coral Reefs: (1 of 2)

Visualizations by Stuart A. Snodgrass Released on October 23, 2000

Coral forms off shore from volcanic islands in tropical latitudes, developing a barrier reef that's separated by a growing lagoon. But over time, while the surrounding ocean wears away the main body of the island, the coral ring remains.

These elegant whorls of color are atolls, enclosed coral reefs almost always surrounding a lagoon. Generally speaking, atolls are the products of volcanic islands that have eroded away.

Landsat 7 "sees" the Earth differently than a camera. By detecting light in discretely separate ranges of color or more accurately, electromagnetic bands the instrument can tailor images to highlight particular features being studied by experts. The different shades in these images highlight various features specific to each coral colony. Patches of bright red show places where coral reefs are actively populated with living organisms.

Near infrared data instead makes some areas on the reef jump out in bright red relief. The near infrared band best gathers the electromagnetic signature of a thriving ecosystem.

Visualization Credits

Stuart A. Snodgrass (GST): Lead Animator
Serge Andrefouet (University of South Florida): Scientist

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

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https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/2008

Mission:
Landsat

Data Used:

Landsat-7/ETM+

1999, 2000

http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/about/wrs.html

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This item is part of this series:
Landsat 7 Coral Reefs

Goddard TV Tape:
G2000-097

Keywords:
NASA Science >> Earth
SVS >> Coral Reefs
DLESE >> Biological oceanography