Earth ID: 3729

Byrd Glacier

Visualizations by Lori Perkins Released on June 15, 2010

LIMA presents the first-ever, true-color, high-resolution view of Antarctica. Prepared from 1100 Landsat-7 images collected from 1999 to 2003, it provides scientists and non-scientists a stunning "you are there" view of the least familiar continent. Shown here are two perspectives of Byrd Glacier, one of the largest in Antarctica. The down-glacier view (above) looks northeastward and the up-glacier regional view (below) looks southward toward the South Pole which is 1050 km distant. The 15-meter resolution imagery is draped over the Radarsat Antarctic Mapping Project Digital Elevation Model Version 2.

Byrd Glacier plunges through a deep valley in the Transatlantic Mountains and onto the Ross Ice Shelf, dropping more than 4,300 feet over a distance of 112 miles. It remains a distinct ice stream all the way to the edge of the shelf, some 260 miles from the foot of the mountains to the open sea.

This cross image of the slow-moving Darwin Glacier in the foreground and the faster-moving Byrd Glacier in the background as both glaciers approach the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. A 2x vertical exaggeration has been applied to the topography.

The glacial ice has a blue cast and bears long stripes that echo the currents in a river. The current in this ice stream carries more ice to the Ross Ice Shelf than any other ice stream. A 4x vertical exaggeration has been applied to the topography.

This poster of Antarctica's Byrd Glacier was presented at IPY's Oslo Science Conference on June 8-12, 2010. The full poster is available here.

Visualization Credits

Lori Perkins (NASA/GSFC): Lead Animator
Bob Bindschadler (NASA/GSFC): Scientist

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio, Canadian Space Agency, RADARSAT International Inc. LIMA Data provided by: Patricia Vornberger (SAIC) LIMA data produced by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and NASA

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Mission:
Landsat

Data Used:

7.5-Minute DEM

Model - USGS

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Landsat-7/ETM+

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

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This item is part of this series:
Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica

Keywords:
GCMD >> Location >> Antarctica
SVS >> For Educators
SVS >> Antarctica >> Topography
SVS >> Glaciers
SVS >> Continents
SVS >> Byrd Glacier
NASA Science >> Earth

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0