"What Was That?" -- Man-Made Features

Man-Made Features

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How to Use This Tool: Say you just flew over some interesting human-made feature, and now you want to know what it is. Scroll down through some of the possibilities below. If you find what you're looking for, you can open it in Google Earth by clicking the Google Earth icon:

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Power Lines- A long, straight swath cut across mountains and forests usually marks giant power lines and towers. {read more}

Scale: Images are taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so are each ~1 mile across.

Open these examples in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.

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Ski Slopes - Long tree-less scars down a mountainside often mark ski slopes.

Scale: Images are taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so are each ~1 mile across.

Open these examples in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.

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Oil Fields - Large oil fields are easy to spot from a plane. They tend to have dense networks of dirt roads connecting small dirt patches, where the pumps are pumping.

Scale: Images are taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so are each ~1 mile across.

Open these examples in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.

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Tailing Ponds - Large man-made ponds near mines. The miners pump contaminated water into the ponds, where contaminates can precipitate out. Mine operators usually construct the ponds as giant rectangles, frequently in rows. The ponds tend to be multi-colored, and are usually right next to what is obviously a mine. {read more}

Scale: Images are taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so are each ~1 mile across. (Yes, they really are that big!)

Open these examples in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.

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Quarry - An open pit mine, usually for rock, gravel, or cement. Unlike mineral mines, quarries tend to be gray- or tan-colored. Bright reds, blues, greens, or variations in colors point to mineral deposits -- usually not to cement. {read more}

Scale: Images are taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so are each ~1 mile across.

Open these examples in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.

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Mountain-Top Removal Mines - These are usually coal mines in the Appalachians. Just like the name says, to get at the coal, the mine operators remove the top of a mountain, following the coal seam. They're easy to spot from a plane flying over, say, West Virginia or Kentucky. {read more}

Scale: Images are taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so are each ~1 mile across.

Open these examples in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.

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Open Pit Mines - Coal - Just as the name implies, an open pit mine is a large, open pit. Coal open pit mines often have an unsurprisingly coal-gray color. These are especially common in Wyoming. {read more}

Scale: Images are taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so are each ~1 mile across.

Open these examples in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.

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Open Pit Mines - Copper - Copper open pit mines often (though not always) are associated with beautiful colors . The major copper ores include chalcopyrite (golden), cuprite (red), malachite (bright green), and bornite (which can be red, copper-colored, blue, or green, and is iridescent), all of which are usually found with other brightly-colored copper minerals {read more}

Scale: Images are taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so are each ~1 mile across.

Open these examples in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.

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Open Pit Mine - Iron - If the primary ore is an iron oxide, an open pit iron mine usually has a mixture of rust-red and dark gray. If the primary ore is an iron sulfide, the colors can be more vibrant and varied {read more}

Scale: Images are taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so are each ~1 mile across.

Open these examples in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.

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Coal Power Plant - Readily identified by their tall cooling towers and flue gas stacks, also by their proximity to water. {read more}

Scale: Images are taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so are each ~1 mile across.

Open these examples in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.

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Dams - Big dams are easily identifiable from overhead because of the giant pool of water behind them and the tiny little stream of water coming out the front. There are a lot of large dams in the U.S. that can be readily seen from flight {read more}

Scale: Images are taken from an altitude of ~35,000 feet, and so are each ~1 mile across.

Open these examples in Google Earth, or download all of the landforms here.