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   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   May 7, 2023 - Great Smoky Mountains   
      
      Great Smoky   
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      The tall ridges of the Great Smoky Mountains stretch across present-day   
      North Carolina and Tennessee, although they predate the formation of   
      the United States by millions of years. According to the United States   
      Geological Survey (USGS), the mountains were formed between 200 and 300   
      million years ago, through uplift of the entire Appalachian region when   
      ancestral North America and Africa collided as part of the formation of   
      the supercontinent Pangea. The massive uplift caused folding and   
      faulting as the mountains formed, as well as earthquakes and a great   
      deal of heat. At first, the mountains likely reached higher than the   
      Rocky Mountains do today, but the forces of weathering and erosion over   
      many millions of years, as well as the changes caused by breakup of   
      Pangea, has left only a remnant core of the soaring mountains that   
      stood as recently 100 million years ago.   
      
      Today, most of the area is protected as Great Smoky Mountains National   
      Park, which covers 522,427 acres divided nearly evenly between   
      Tennessee and North Carolina. The crest of the Great Smokies now runs   
      in an unbroken chain of peaks that rise more than 5,000 feet for over   
      36 miles. Elevations in the park range from 876 to 6,643 feet. The   
      tallest mountains are Clingman’s Dome, which rises to 6,643 feet,   
      followed by Mount Guyot (6,621 feet), and Mount Le Conte (6,593 feet).   
      
      In 2022, the Great Smoky National Park was the third most-visited   
      location in the National Park System, following closely behind the   
      nearby Blue Ridge Parkway and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area,   
      located in California. Weekends in summer draw heavy crowds on roads   
      and popular trails, although solitude may still be found in more remote   
      locations, especially in the winter. The beauty of the region also   
      draws people to live in cities and towns close to the park boundaries.   
      While the increasing human use and climate change bring challenges to   
      the ecosystem, natural life in the park remains abundant and quite   
      diverse.   
      
      In 1998, scientists began a biological inventory of all life forms   
      within the park. Since that time, nearly 10,000 species have been   
      discovered living within the park that had previously been unknown in   
      the region. About 1,000 of these were new species, having never been   
      identified anywhere on Earth before. The extraordinary diversity of   
      this park led to the park’s designation as a United Nations World   
      Heritage Site and International Biosphere Reserve.   
      
      On May 4, 2023, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer   
      (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image   
      centered on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The folded nature   
      of the mountain ridges is most easily seen on the northwestern slope,   
      where white spots of “popcorn clouds” dot the skies. A group of gray   
      pixels, arranged like a spider web on the northwestern apex of the arc   
      formed by the mountains is Knoxville, Tennessee. In the green forests   
      on the eastern slopes, the city of Asheville, North Carolina, is marked   
      by a ring of gray pixels with gray lines (roads) extending outward.   
      Both of these cities sit well outside park boundaries. Additional gray   
      pixels in the southeast mark human development along Interstate 85 in   
      North Carolina and South Carolina.   
      
      Image Facts   
      Satellite:  Terra   
      Date Acquired: 5/4/2023   
      Resolutions:  1km (177.8 KB),  500m (491.4 KB),  250m (1004.2   
      KB)   
      Bands Used: 1,4,3   
      Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC   
      
      
      
   https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2023-05-07   
       
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