In the past 2 weeks, there were 4 different coal train derailments in the United States. On Wednesday, June 27 a Union Pacific coal train derailed near Junction City, in northeastern Kansas, overturning or crushing 23 rail cars. The train was en route to Memphis from a mine in Colorado, according to this report. On […]
Here at SkyTruth, we are always looking for new ways to visualize the environmental impact of human activity, so we’ve been playing with LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data and digital elevation models (DEMs). We thought it would be interesting, and potentially useful, to create a profile of the terrain of a mine before and […]
Last Friday, I posted a blog about our historical map showing the cumulative impact of mountain top removal coal-mining activity. At John’s request, I have begun using this data set to assess the expansion of observable mountain top removal (MTR) mining footprint since 2005, when the data set was last updated. I’ve used Logan County, […]
Yay! We’ve got a new toy here at the lab! We’ve received a Google Earth Builder license! We’re excited because it will allow us to publish huge data sets that we were never able to publish before. The first thing we’ve decided to publish is a historic map of the cumulative impact of mountain top […]
Hello, my name is Yolandita. I am an Environmental Sustainability major at Shepherd University and a volunteer at SkyTruth. I have been asked to produce a 3D model of a coal train, that will be published to Google Earth. Coal companies are planning to export coal from Powder River Coal Fields in Wyoming to Bellingham, […]