River Plumes Threaten Great Barrier Reef - related image preview

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River Plumes Threaten Great Barrier Reef

In late February 2007, NASA satellite images revealed that even the outer portions of the Australia’s Great Barrier Reef can be bathed in land-based pollution carried far offshore by plumes of river water. Conventional thinking was that river plumes affected only the lagoon and the inner portions of the reef. But images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite verify a new theory that not even the outer reefs are spared the impact of land-based pollution, which includes excess sediment, fertilizers, and pesticides.


NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center.

Published March 29, 2007
Data acquired February 9, 2007

Source:
Terra > MODIS