Finches on the Galapagos Islands have evolved to exploit almost every possible niche. This diagram shows the range of food sources available on the island and the different beak shapes adapted to exploit each of them.
This graphic from Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches by Peter Grant presents data from the Galapagos Islands, showing that a severe drought put selective pressure on the population of Darwin's finches and resulted in a change in the average beak size in the next generation.
A tour of the ocean bathymetry near the Galapagos Islands
This animation shows the power of computer graphics to explore data in the sense of virtual reality. In this scene, standard tools are applied to fly around the Galapagos Islands and the ocean floor surrounding the islands.
The Ocean Planet is a traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution which opened in Washington DC on April 22, 1995. A part of the exhibition was a computer flyby of the Pacific Ocean developed in the SVS. This animation represents a stage in the development of that flyby.
SeaWiFS documented the rapid demise of El Nino in the waters around the Galapagos Islands. The images show a explosion in plankton growth as the warm El Nino waters blamed for choking off essential ocean nutrients are replaced by deep cold up-welled waters. The false color images, which document plankton concentrations a period from May 9 to May 24 1998, show that life in the region to the west archipelago has returned in remarkable abundance. High concentrations are shown red. Areas occluded by clouds are shown in white.
SeaWiFS documented the rapid demise of El Nino in the waters around the Galapagos Islands. The images show a explosion in plankton growth as the warm El Nino waters blamed for choking off essential ocean nutrients are replaced by deep cold up-welled waters. The false color images, which document plankton concentrations a period from May 9, 1998 to May 31, 1998, show that life in the region to the west archipelago has returned in remarkable abundance. High concentrations are shown red and low concentrations in blue. Areas occluded by clouds are shown in white. A relief image of the Galapagos islands has been superimposed on the images to clarify the location of the islands.
