Image: New national monuments Mojave 2016

Description: In February 2016, the United States government established the world’s second-largest desert preserve. In designating three new national monuments in the California desert, the U.S. Department of the Interior added 1.8 million acres to an existing 7.6 million acres of protected land. This image from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 shows how they all connect. (The image is a composite of satellite data from Landsat 8 passes on February 8 and February 17, 2016.) The western edge of Sand to Snow National Monument is located about 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of downtown Los Angeles. This aptly named monument encompasses 150,000 acres from the floor of the Sonoran Desert to the mountaintops in San Bernardino National Forest. Ecological diversity at the various altitudes makes this monument unique. Hikers encounter some of this diversity along 50 kilometers (30 miles) of the Pacific Crest Trail that crosses through the monument, from Whitewater Canyon up 2100 meters (7,000) feet to Mission Springs. Desert oases, like the one in the top photograph below, are important refuges for animals and critical stopover spots for migrating birds.
Title: New national monuments Mojave 2016
Credit: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=87668&src=eoa-iotd
Author: NASANASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
Permission: Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.) Warnings: Use of NASA logos, insignia and emblems is restricted per U.S. law 14 CFR 1221. The NASA website hosts a large number of images from the Soviet/Russian space agency, and other non-American space agencies. These are not necessarily in the public domain. Materials based on Hubble Space Telescope data may be copyrighted if they are not explicitly produced by the STScI.[1] See also Template:PD-Hubble and Template:Cc-Hubble. The SOHO (ESA & NASA) joint project implies that all materials created by its probe are copyrighted and require permission for commercial non-educational use. [2] Images featured on the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) web site may be copyrighted. [3] The National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) site has been known to host copyrighted content. Its photo gallery FAQ states that all of the images in the photo gallery are in the public domain "Unless otherwise noted."
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No