Update on January 28, 2025: This false-color Landsat image shows blocks of protected forest reserves in southwestern Ghana, which contrast with surrounding lighter green farms and towns. Congratulations to John Amos for being the first reader to identify the location. Read more about the area in “Ghana’s Declining Forest Reserves.”
Every month on Earth Matters, we offer a puzzling satellite image. The December 2024 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.
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This image shows southwest Ghana. The small city of Gambia No. 1 lies near the center. The dark green patches on the image, with sharp rectilinear edges, are protected areas of relatively intact forest (although many of these forested areas are being rapidly degraded by agriculture — particularly cocoa plantations — logging, mining, grazing, and wood cutting for fuel).
My guess is that the photo is of a section of the Amazon rain forest. Roads and darker, deforested areas stand out.
This is an aerial image of Wisconsin
Foresta pluviale dell’Amazzonia
Good evening
First thought… Amazonia.
But, forest cleaning hapening and in/at Sumatra, Borneo, Papua-New Guinea amd even New British Island with more geometrical “roads” than Amazonia.
At last, Borneo i hope.
Thanks
Has to be the Amazon rainforest
This is in the rainforest, where tracts of land are being sold off and developed. The straight edges indicate human activity, and within some of the linear areas you can see a road.
Un premier coup d’oeil me ferait penser au nord du Mato Grosso (avec ses paysages et ses “paysagistes”) du côté du Rio Teles Pirès ? Alta Floresta ? … je vais creuser 🙂
a large river and its tributaries along with irrigation channels
43.09038534192179, -122.10083868721634
It’s not there (probably) but it reminds me of that intersection, I thought I took an iconic photo from the USA from the National Parks survey vacation program there, but probably not… the device didn’t have GPS and I wouldn’t rely on it at all today…, just by the way…
There’s a sign on the maps a little bit from here, so they showed me a number like that…43.09038534192179, -122.10083868721634
I see some signs of gas or oil extraction, roads around the bottom in an untouched forest area or after partial extraction with marked lines, unrealized projects by developers? WHO KNOWS? …
next week I begin to look for that location, but this moment – big “?”
CZECH: MY NATIVE:
Není to tam (asi) ale připomíná mi to tu křižovatku, myslel jsem si, že jsem tam vyfotil ikonickou fotku z USA z National Parks survey vacation program, ale asi ne… přístroj neměl GPS a dnes bych se na to už vůbec nespoléhal…, jen tak mimochodem…
na mapách je kousek odtud nějaká značka, tak mi ukázaly číslo jako že …43.09038534192179, -122.1008386872163 4
Vidím jakési náznaky těžby plynu nebo ropy, silnice kolem dnad v nedotknuté snad pralesní oblasti anebo po částečné těžbě s vyznačenými liniemi, neuskutečněné projekty developerů? KDO VÍ? …
Příští týden začnu hledat, ale teď fakt velkej otazník “?”