NASA: Ecology - Ecología - 27-05-10 - The Greenstone Waters, New Zealand - Record Low April Snow - Goat Paddock Crater

Posted by Ricardo Marcenaro | Posted in , | Posted on 15:13


Ecology - Ecología

The Greenstone Waters, New Zealand


Te Wāhipounamu, the greenstone waters, is a sacred place in the Maori culture of New Zealand. The foreboding mountains and steep-walled valleys on New Zealand’s southwest coast are the places of Atua, gods. And the streams that wash down from the glacier-capped peaks carry a highly prized stone, a hard, translucent, green rock that the Maori carved into jewelry and blades, for both tools and weapons.
The rock, greenstone, came to New Zealand when Ngahue fled a jealous chieftainess on Hawaiki, taking Poutini (his greenstone) with him. His canoe brought him to the South Island of New Zealand, where he secreted the stone in the mountains of the southwest coast, says Maori legend. Poutini remains hidden, but pieces break off in streams, providing the Maori with precious greenstone. Most New Zealand greenstone is nephrite—a form of jade—though some is bowenite, another mineral.
From space, the west coast of New Zealand resembles the greenstone for which it is named. Dark green native forest extends from the mountain tree line to the shore. Southern beech, rimu and kahikatea (both tall conifers) once covered more than 80 percent of New Zealand, but the lowland forests are now less extensive. The lighter green land in the southeast was once forested, but is now grassland or agriculture.
The remaining forest is as precious as the greenstone it resembles. It is an echo of the ancient forests that once spread across the great southern continent, Gondwana, more than 100 million years ago. Some giant trees in today’s forest are as much as 800 years old. The forest is invaluable, too, because it harbors unique and endangered animals like the kiwi and takahe, both flightless birds, and the kea, the only alpine parrot.
Te Wāhipounamu is wilderness, and New Zealand has set the land aside to conserve it. The entire 2.6 million hectares that make up the southwest coast of the South Island (about 10 percent of New Zealand’s land area) is divided between four national parks, state forests, and other conservation areas. Its natural and cultural significance made Te Wāhipounamu a World Heritage area in December 1990.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this unusually cloud-free view of New Zealand on April 9, 2010. The large image shows both the entire South Island and the North Island at the sensor’s maximum resolution. The image is available in additional resolutions from the MODIS Rapid Response Team.


  1. References

  2. Department of Conservation. TeWāhipounamu – South West New Zealand World Heritage Area. Government of New Zealand. Accessed May 3, 2010.
  3. Department of Conservation. (2007, May). TeWāhipounamu – South West New Zealand World Heritage Area (pdf). Government of New Zealand. Accessed May 3, 2010.
  4. De Wit, M., Jeffrey, M., Bergh, H., and Nicolaysen, L. (1999). Gondwana reconstruction and dispersion. University of Witwatersrand. Accessed May 3, 2010.
  5. Keane, B. (2009, March 2). Pounamu – several names. Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Accessed May 3, 2010.
  6. Reed, J.J. (2009, April 22). Greenstone. An Encyclopedia of New Zealand 1966. Accessed May 3, 2010.
  7. Swarbrick, N. (2009, March 2). Forest in 1000 and 1840. Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Accessed May 3, 2010.
  8. Wassilieff, M (2009, March 1). Rimu and kahikatea. Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Accessed May 3, 2010.
  9. World Heritage. (2010, May 3). Te Wahipounamu – South West New Zealand. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Accessed May 3, 2010.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
Instrument: 
Terra - MODIS
 Record Low April Snow
  
Color bar for Record Low April Snow
acquired April 1 - 30, 2010
Winter 2009-2010 was much colder than normal for the United States, and it delivered a string of record-breaking snowstorms that began on the winter solstice. The snow and cold didn’t linger far into the spring, however. By the end of April, North American snow cover had retreated to the lowest extent in the 1967–2010 record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s April 2010 State of the Climate Report.(MODIS) on NASA’s Terra This map shows percent snow cover across North America in April 2010 based on observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer satellite. Percent snow cover ranges from just above zero (light blue) to 100 percent (white). Land areas with no detectable snow cover during the month are gray. According to NOAA, “Across North America, snow cover for April 2010 was 2.2 million square kilometers below average—the lowest April snow cover extent since satellite records began in 1967 and the largest negative anomaly to occur in the 521 months that satellite measurements are available.” Unusual warmth descended on North America in April, leading to both low snowfall amounts and rapid melt of existing snow. The Earth Observatory’s Global Maps section provides an animation of monthly, global snow cover from February 2000 to the present.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, based on MODIS snow cover data available through the NASA Earth Observations (NEO) Website. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.
Instrument: 
Terra - MODIS
 Goat Paddock Crater
Geologists typically characterize Earth’s impact craters as one of two kinds: simple or complex. Simple craters are relatively small and bowl shaped while complex craters are relatively large with central uplifts and slumped rims. Goat Paddock Crater, located on the Kimberley Plateau of northwestern Australia, appears to straddle the simple-complex category, according to a study published in 2005.
The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image of Goat Paddock Crater on April 30, 2010. Sunlight from the northeast leaves southwestern facing slopes in shadow. Radial gorges extend outward from the crater, especially in the east and southeast. Cliffs surround the crater, rising to a height of about 100 to 150 meters (330 to 500 feet).
Spanning roughly 5 kilometers (3 miles), Goat Paddock Crater has a slightly elliptical shape. Dating from the Eocene Epoch, the crater is likely less than 50 million years old, but the impact bored into Proterozoic sandstones well over 500 million years old. Neither bowl-shaped nor uplifted, the surface of Goat Paddock Crater is flat. Much of the crater rim slumps inward. Geologists involved in the 2005 study suspect that the impact upturned bedrock, pushing it outward and breaking much of the rock into angular fragments, or breccia. After being pushed outward, the rock inclined inward toward the central cavity. The floor of Goat Paddock Crater is covered by sediments deposited since the Pleistocene Epoch.


  1. References

  2. Earth Impact Database. Goat Paddock. Accessed March 12, 2010.
  3. Milton, D.J., Macdonald, F.A. (2006). Goat Paddock, Western Australia: an impact crater near the simple - complex transition. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 52(4&5), 689–697.

NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team. Caption by Michon Scott.
Instrument: 
EO-1 - ALI
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