The OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 captured an image of Kachemak Bay’s turbid, cloudy waters on September 20, 2024. This cloudiness comes from glacial flour: bits of pulverized rock ground down by glaciers that has the consistency of flour. Several meltwater streams rich with the particles, sometimes called suspended sediment, absorb and scatter sunlight in ways that turn water a milky blue-green hue. The water that flows into the bay from the Grewingk-Yalik Glacier Complex to the east carries sediment-infused waters that transform the appearance of the bay during the summer, raising questions about how much the influx of sediment affects the bay’s marine life.
Learn more about efforts to study Kachemak Bay’s sediment plumes.
Text credit: Adam Voiland
Image credit: NASA/Michala Garrison, USGS
陆地卫星8号（Landsat 8）上的OLI（陆地成像仪，Operational Land Imager）于2024年9月20日拍摄了卡奇马克湾（Kachemak Bay）浑浊的水域影像。这种浑浊现象源自冰川粉尘（glacial flour），即由冰川碾磨形成的细如面粉的岩石碎屑。多条富含这些颗粒（有时称为悬浮沉积物）的融水溪流流入海湾，吸收并散射阳光，使水体呈现出乳白色的蓝绿色。来自格鲁宾格-雅里克冰川复合体（Grewingk-Yalik Glacier Complex）的水流携带大量沉积物，在夏季改变了海湾的外观，并引发了关于沉积物流入对海洋生物影响的研究问题。
文稿来源: Adam Voiland
图片来源: NASA/Michala Garrison, USGS
