Ocean Color Image Gallery

Midwest Soils to Gulf of Mexico

Flooding along the Mississippi River watershed at the beginning of 2016 lifted vast quantities of soil from the U.S. Midwest and sent it flowing southward toward the Gulf of Mexico. By January 18th, those brown, sediment-laden waters could be seen emerging from the river's distributaries at Atchafalaya Bay, Lake Pontchartrain, and the Mississippi River Delta itself.

Click on the above image for a larger version of that Aqua MODIS scene, or download a higher resolution Landsat 8 scene of the Mississippi River Delta collected a few hours earlier that same day.