Comments on: If I must have a title, make it some pithy comment about the Yukon's Menstruation, I suppose.

Question: If I must have a title, make it some pithy comment about the Yukon's Menstruation, I suppose.

converge — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:02:33 -0800

What is this? 60°24'37.66"N 130°48'59.78"W. View it in satellite on Google Maps or Earth.

This has been bugging me for a couple of months. Forest fire? Maybe. But it seems to go much higher than the tree line (yeah, I get that the heat could possibly distort the sat pic) and shows up in a few sources (though, this area is probably not photographed much). I'm sure its not beetle kill. Might it be a huge copper deposit or some such?

By: rongorongo

rongorongo — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:15:38 -0800

Here is a Google Maps link to the spot coverage is talking about.

By: hjo3

hjo3 — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:21:03 -0800

Fire weed? Or color distortion.

By: mdonley

mdonley — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:28:22 -0800

Don't have an answer, but these are all over the Yukon, Northwest Territory, and Alaska if you zoom out from your location and look for similar red splotches at the same latitudes. Fireweed is also the floral emblem of Yukon.

By: troika

troika — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 03:20:46 -0800

Hey I know this one! I believe it to be a forest fire scar. This even backs it up!
I analyzed satellite imagery at my last job

By: troika

troika — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 03:21:59 -0800

Thankfully, satellite imagery doesn't require periods at the end of sentences.

By: Rumple

Rumple — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 07:44:35 -0800

I seriously doubt it is fireweed. More likely it is forest fire, and the colour is false/distorted in the low-res views. Compare this area which has the grey look of dead trees -- then zoom out and when it flips to low-res it is that orangey colour.

There is a slight chance it might be pine beetle kill rather than fire but I don't recall much beetle that far north, yet.

By: krautland

krautland — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:24:03 -0800

that is fire retardant as dropped by an aircraft.

By: 517

517 — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 09:41:22 -0800

"that is fire retardant as dropped by an aircraft."

8 square miles of it?

By: Iteki

Iteki — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:22:44 -0800

Peat bogs show up like that (similar colouration in Ireland).

By: oneirodynia

oneirodynia — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:30:43 -0800

I'm pretty certain it's iron rich soil. Yukon geology seems to be mostly comprised of all sorts of chunks of various accreted rocks, which is why it's such a mining El Dorado. So far, none of the geologic maps I've found online have wanted to open for me, or are too complicated to easily understand.

By: converge

converge — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:45:47 -0800

I think troika's right. Find it odd the scar would show up as red, though (think it'd be black). Fire scars don't look anything like that on the ground, especially in the mountains. But examining others from the Yukon, BC, and Alberta (like the ones nearish to Slave Lake), they are clearly red. Thanks guys.

By: converge

converge — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:55:54 -0800

So, if you don't mind, what's this grey, huge highway-looking mark across Lake Baikal?

By: fantabulous timewaster

fantabulous timewaster — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:37:39 -0800

The thing on Baikal looks like an image artifact: a place where two satellite sweeps should have overlapped, but didn't, so there's a strip with no data. The way it peters out in the mountains to the east and the lake to the west doesn't look like a picture of anything physical.

By: troika

troika — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 05:07:27 -0800

Seconding fantabulous timewaster - that's definitely an error in processing, not something on the ground.

By: krautland

krautland — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:38:57 -0800

8 square miles of it?

possible. tanker 910 is quite capable and making a few drops within a day is not unheard of.