The Aral Sea is actually not a sea at all, but an immense fresh water lake. In the last thirty years, more than sixty percent of the lake has disappeared because much of the river flow feeding the lake was diverted to irrigate cotton fields and rice paddies. Concentrations of salts and minerals began to rise in the shrinking body of water, leading to staggering alterations in the lakes ecology and precipitous drops in the Arals fish population. Powerful winds that blow across this part of Asia routinely pick up and deposit the now exposed lake bed soil. This has contributed to a significant reduction in breathable air quality, and crop yields have been appreciably affected due to heavily salt laden particles falling on arable land. This series of Landsat images taken in 1973, 1987 and 2000 show the profound reduction in overall area at the north end of the Aral, and a commensurate increase in land area as the floor of the sea now lies exposed.
Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, devastating more than 150 square miles of forest in southwestern Washington state. This animation shows Landsat images of the Mount St. Helens area in 1973, 1983, and 2000, illustrating the destruction and regrowth of the forest. The 1983 image clearly shows the new crater on the northern slope where the eruption occurred, the rivers and lakes covered with ash, and the regions of deforestation. The 2000 image, taken twenty years after the eruption, still shows the changed crater, but much of the devastated area is covered by new vegetation growth.
Throughout much of the 1980s, deforestation in Brazil eliminated more than 15,000 square kilometers (9000 square miles) of forest per year. Data gathered by several satellites in the Landsat series of spacecraft shows enormous tracts of forest disappearing in Rondonia, Brazil from 1975 through 2001. The human phenomenon of deforestation starts, especially in the dense tropical forests of Brazil, when systematic cutting of a road opens new territory to potential deforestation by penetrating into new areas. Clearing of vegetation along the sides of those roads then tends to fan out to create a pattern akin to a fish skeleton. As new paths appear in the woods, more areas become vulnerable. Finally, the spaces between the skeletal bones fall to defoliation.
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