Ocean Color Image Gallery

CDOM Enters the Chesapeake

Colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) shades the waters of Pocomoke Sound a deep brown in this Landsat 8 image of the middle Chesapeake Bay and Delmarva Peninsula. The color comes from decaying vegetation that falls into the Pocomoke River as it drains from the remnants of the Great Cypress Swamp in Delaware toward its mouth at the bay.

CDOM is basically nature's tea. The photograph at lower left shows CDOM laden water from a Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge retention pond draining toward the Chesapeake (just north of this Landsat image).