Image: Norilsk L7 20010809
Description: False-color image of w:Norilsk, Siberia, Russia. Shades of pink and purple indicate bare ground: rock formations, cities, quarries, and places where pollution has damaged the vegetation. Brilliant greens show predominately healthy mixed tundra-boreal forest. Water appears in shades of blue. The Noril’skaya River cuts through the scene, and the forest-tundra terrain on either side is riddled with small “pothole” lakes. Blue-white plumes of smoke (just left of image center) drift southeastward from smokestacks in Noril’sk. The deep and pale pinks downwind of the city, as well as the deep purple in the hillsides immediately outside Noril’sk, are moderately to severely damaged ecosystems. To the northeast of the river, the ecosystems appear healthier. A large coal quarry, one of the sources of electricity in Noril’sk, appears as a purple patch south of the city of Kayerkan.
Title: Norilsk L7 20010809
Credit: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17259
Author: Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory, using data obtained from the University of Maryland’s Global Land Cover Facility.
Permission: US government, public domain
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No
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