In February 2016, the United States government established the world’s second-largest desert preserve. In designating three new national monuments in the California desert, the U.S. Department of the Interior added 1.8 million acres to an existing 7.6 million acres of protected land. This image from the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 shows how they all connect. (The image is a composite of satellite data from Landsat 8 passes on February 8 and February 17, 2016.)
<p>The western edge of Sand to Snow National Monument is located about 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of downtown Los Angeles. This aptly named monument encompasses 150,000 acres from the floor of the Sonoran Desert to the mountaintops in San Bernardino National Forest. Ecological diversity at the various altitudes makes this monument unique.
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Hikers encounter some of this diversity along 50 kilometers (30 miles) of the Pacific Crest Trail that crosses through the monument, from Whitewater Canyon up 2100 meters (7,000) feet to Mission Springs. Desert oases, like the one in the top photograph below, are important refuges for animals and critical stopover spots for migrating birds.
NASANASA Earth Observatory image by Jesse Allen, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
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