Acadia National Park, located in Maine, is a popular tourist destination year round. However, with repeated visitor use, the native plants in the park can be altered or degraded. To address this, management efforts are put in place to protect the vegetation. Using Planet satellite data, scientists from the University of Maine […]

Satellite imagery can provide geologic context for scientific discoveries on the ground, such as sample location mapping for fossil discoveries. A new study led out of McGill University by Cortés et al. (2021) details the discovery of fossils in central Colombia that represent a new genus of ichthyosaur—large, long-extinct marine reptiles. Dubbed […]

Illegal sand mining is running rampant in the world due to the need for river sand as a binder in making concrete. Desert sand isn’t suitable for this purpose due to its shape. This illegal activity had led to the deaths of journalists, farmers, miners, and more, as well as causing ecological […]

Permafrost is defined as ground that remains below freezing for multiple years in a row. This frozen ground is hard as concrete. However, rising temperatures from climate change are leading to thawing of this permafrost, impacting local ecosystems and infrastructure. Thaw also results in the release of significant amounts of methane into […]