Update on 4/25: This Landsat image shows Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument in the winter. Congratulations to Mike and Charles for being the first readers to identify the location.
Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The April 2025 puzzler is shown above. Your challenge is to use the comments section to tell us where it is, what we are looking at, and why it is interesting.
How to answer. You can use a few words or several paragraphs. You might simply tell us the location, or you can dig deeper and offer details about what satellite and instrument produced the image, what spectral bands were used to create it, or what is compelling about some obscure feature. If you think something is interesting or noteworthy, tell us about it.
The prize. We cannot offer prize money or a trip on the International Space Station, but we can promise you credit and glory. Well, maybe just credit. Within a week after a puzzler image appears on this blog, we will post an annotated and captioned version as our Image of the Day. After we post the answer, we will acknowledge the first person to correctly identify the image at the bottom of this blog post. We also may recognize readers who offer the most interesting tidbits of information. Please include your preferred name or alias with your comment. If you work for or attend an institution that you would like to recognize, please mention that as well.
Recent winners. If you have won the puzzler in the past few months, or if you work in geospatial imaging, please hold your answer for at least a day to give less experienced readers a chance.
Releasing comments. Savvy readers have solved some puzzlers after a few minutes. To give more people a chance, we may wait 24 to 48 hours before posting comments. Good luck!
That’s the Bob Marshall wilderness in Northern Montana along with the “Chinese wall”(?). I’m guessing the largest undeveloped amount of land in the USA.
Mt Ararat, with what some people think are the remains of Noah’s Ark.
This is a winter scene of the Climax Mine NNE of Leadville, CO. It is large active and historic open pit molybdenum mine, dating back to the early 1900’s. The pit can be seen as the terraced feature in the lower right quadrant of the image. Adjacent to the mine to the NNW are the tailings piles – these have buried the former townsites of Robinson and Kokomo in the Tenmile Creek drainage. The mine sits on the Continental Divide, with Tenmile flowing into Dillon Reservoir, and Blue River flowing from Dillon to the Colorado. South of the mine is Fremont Pass, and is the headwaters of the Arkansas River. Because of both of these major drainages, acid mine drainage is a real and ongoing concern.
Colorado ski resort Breckenridge, and possible Lovland pass Tunnel entry and more!
Colorado snowy Breckenridge in November 2018
I’d say it’s over Gunnison and Crested Butte, Colorado. Final answer.
mountains of Colorado with ski slopes
The area includes Copper Mountain, CO (ski trails in the upper right of the image) a mining area that is part of the Colorado Mineral belt. Several mines are shown in this winter image. Most notable is the “Glory Hole” of the Climax mine shown in the mid-lower right side of the image.
This area of Colorado currently sits over significant low P and S wave velocity anomalies in the upper mantle (as determined from analysis of EarthScope seismic data) that suggest that upwelling fluids from the subducted Farallon plate has eroded Proterozoic mantle causing crustal uplift of the Rockies in this area and generating mineralization. (MacCarthy, et al. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 402 (2014) 107–119).
The image is probably useful for analyzing snow cover.
looks like area around camp hale
I think it is a cold snowy mountain.