12 January 2011
Archival Gold: The NOAA Photo Library
Posted by Jessica Ball
The next feature for “Archival Gold”, posts featuring public-domain Earth science images, is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Photo Library. Here’s a bit about it from their site:
The NOAA Photo Library has been built so as to capture the work, observations, and studies that are carried on by the scientists, engineers, commissioned officers, and administrative personnel that make up this complex and scientifically diverse agency. It also has been built in an attempt to capture NOAA’s scientific heritage, which is in fact a heritage shared by much of the physical and environmental science communities in the United States today.
The photos are organized by collection, but there is (of course) a search feature, and the photos aren’t all about oceanic and atmospheric subjects. Here are a few of my favorites:
Pacific Ring of Fire Expedition. Views of the plume coming out of Brimstone Pit crater near the summit of Northwest Rota-1 volcano. NOAA Photo Library
Topographic surveying at dusk. NOAA's Historic Coast & Geodetic Survey (C&GS) Collection Credit: Family of Vice Admiral H. Arnold Karo, C&GS
A volcano in the Kurile Islands. Credit: Collection of Dr. Igor Smolyar, NOAA/NODC
Images of snowflakes showing six-sided symmetry and ice crystals. In: "Micrographia, or, Some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses....", by Robert Hooke. 1667.
Jessica Ball is a volcanologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, researching volcanic hydrothermal systems and stability, and doing science communication for the California Volcano Observatory. She previously worked at the Geological Society of America's Washington DC Policy Office, learning about the intersection of Earth science and legislative affairs. Her Mendenhall postdoc and PhD focused on how water affects the stability of volcanoes, and involved both field investigations and numerical modeling applications. Her blogging covers a range of topics, from her experiences in academic geosciences to science outreach and communication to her field and lab work in volcanology.
Thanks for the notice. Perhaps you are aware of this, but the AGU’s most prestigious medal, the Bowie Medal, is named for William Bowie of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, NOAA’s oldest ancestor agency. If you went to the trouble to track down various photo libraries, you might also be interested in history of science. See: http://www.history.noaa.gov and http://www.lib.noaa.gov/noaainfo/heritage/coastandgeodeticsurvey/index.html . Saw a PBS special on Krakatoa last night. Hope you were able to see that at one time or another.
Skip Theberge, Capt. (NOAA Corps, ret.)
Chief of Reference, NOAA Central Library