This Echo is READ ONLY !   NO Un-Authorized Messages Please!
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

David E. Steitz
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1730)                June 19, 2003

Alan Buis                            Howard Cohen 
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.  NIMA, Bethesda, 
Md.
(Phone: 818/354-0474)                (Phone: 301/ 227-3105)

RELEASE: 03-204

SOUTH AMERICA SHINES IN NASA'S LATEST SPACE RADAR MAP 
RELEASE

     Straddling the equator and engaged in a titanic clash 
of great tectonic plates, South America is home to some of 
the world's most scenic landscapes. Yet this same proximity 
to the equator, with its frequent tropical cloud cover, has 
also made it difficult to obtain traditional satellite 
imagery of this vast land. 

Thanks to cloud-penetrating radar flown on NASA's Shuttle 
Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), Feb. 11 - 22, 2000, more 
than 340 million residents of the fourth largest continent 
have access to the same level of high-resolution topographic 
data North America and much of Europe have taken for 
granted. A just released topographic data set sheds fresh 
light on the diverse characteristics of South America and 
paves the way for a wide variety of scientific 
investigations and commercial applications.   

"These data, and previously released data, continue to 
demonstrate the extraordinary value space-based radar can 
provide for better understanding and protecting our home 
planet," said Dr. Ghassem Asrar, Associate Administrator for 
Earth Sciences, NASA Headquarters, Washington. "This 
information has scientific and commercial value that will 
help to improve life here, and provides new understanding of 
how South America has evolved through time."

"These new data highlight the tremendous diversity of South 
America's geology as never before," said Dr. Michael 
Kobrick, SRTM project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif. "The improved resolution 
of this data set will make a tangible difference in the 
lives of people throughout the continent in many ways. For 
example, governments may be better able to prepare for 
natural hazards such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, 
landslides and floods; aviation safety in mountainous 
regions may be improved; and land use planners will be able 
to make better decisions regarding the development of 
critical infrastructure such as roads, reservoirs, aqueducts 
and communications," Kobrick said.

At 17,819,000 square kilometers (6,879,954 square miles), 
South America accounts for approximately 12 percent of 
Earth's land mass. Its topography is dominated by the Andes 
Mountains, which extend along the Pacific Coast. The Andes 
were created primarily by the convergence of the Nazca and 
South American tectonic plates. The Nazca Plate, which 
underlies the eastern Pacific Ocean, slides under western 
South America, resulting in crustal thickening, uplift and 
volcanism. Another convergence zone is found along the 
continent's northwestern coast, where the Caribbean Plate 
also slides under the South American Plate, forming the 
northeastern extension of the Andes.

East of the Andes, much of northern South America drains 
into the Amazon River, the world's largest river in terms of 
both watershed area and flow volume. Topographic relief is 
very low in much of the Amazon Basin, but the new data 
provide a detailed look at the basin's 3-Dimensional 
drainage pattern. North of the Amazon, the Guiana Highlands 
stands in sharp contrast to the surrounding lowlands. South 
of the Amazon, the Brazilian Highlands show a mix of 
landforms. Fractures paralleling the east coast are likely 
related to the opening of the Atlantic Ocean as South 
America drifted away from Africa, starting about 130 million 
years ago. 

Two visualization methods were combined to produce the main 
South America image: shading and color coding of topographic 
height. The shade image was derived by computing topographic 
slope in the northwest-southeast direction, so northwest 
slopes appear bright and southeast slopes appear dark. 
Color-coding depicts the lowest elevations in green, rising 
through yellow and tan, to white at the highest elevations.

The SRTM made 3-D measurements of more than 80 percent of 
Earth's landmass, located between 60 degrees north and 56 
degrees south of the equator. The mission is a cooperative 
project of NASA, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency of 
the U.S. Department of Defense, the German and Italian space 
agencies. The mission continues to fulfill NASA's mission to 
understand and protect our home planet. 

Selected images created from the data set are available on 
the JPL Planetary Photojournal: 

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03388  
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03389  
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03390
  
Information about SRTM is available on the Internet at: 
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/

Information about NASA is available on the Internet at: 
http://www.nasa.gov

-end-

                            * * *

 - END OF FILE -
==========

@Message posted automagically by IMTHINGS POST 1.30
---