Northwest Alaska

Credit: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC, Posted on: Monday, 1 September 2008, 03:02 CDT Download full size image

The browns and greens of northern Alaska in August contrast greatly with the white wintery landscape the is only a few months off. This image shows a view of this region during a past October, where snow blankets the landscape. Without snow, we can see some of the features of the land.

The Brooks Range Mountains sweep across the top - they do have a dusting of white amongst them. North of the mountains, nearer to the coast are small dark dots, each of which are small lakes. Sediment turns the coastal water in several regions a greenish brown color. The Beaufort Sea sits at the top of the image. The Chukchi Sea is at the middle of the left edge of the image and connects to the Kotzebue Sound. South of the Sound is the Seward Peninsula. This Peninsula stretches into the Bering Sea, and was once part of the famous Bering land bridge that connected Alaska with Siberia during the Pleistocene Ice Age. South of this Peninsula, a large, pale colored river stretches northeast. This is the Yukon River. Where it meets the Bering Sea, more sediment is visible.

This image was captured by the MODIS on the Terra satellite on August 23, 2008.

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