Earth from Space: Iran’s salt desert, Dasht-e Kavir
The curving sands in central northern Iran’s salt desert, Dasht-e Kavir, can be seen in this image from the Ikonos-2 satellite.
Here, clays and sand soils have a high surface salt content owing to the concentration of minerals from high summer evaporation.Iran is one of the world’s most important mineral producers. Earth-observing satellites – and in particular, high-resolution multispectral imagery – are useful for finding and monitoring natural resources like minerals.
Satellites can directly identify different minerals and recognise large-scale geological structures related to mineral deposits that ground-based surveys may have difficulty detecting.
Near the area pictured are biosphere reserves, national parks and wildlife refuges. When dealing with large, uninhabited areas like this, remote sensing can provide a simple solution to managing protected land.
This image was acquired on 13 November 2008 by Ikonos-2, a commercial satellite that provides panchromatic and multispectral imagery at an extremely high resolution of up to 1 m per pixel.
ESA supports Ikonos-2 as a Third Party Mission, which means that the Agency uses its multi-mission European ground infrastructure and expertise to acquire, process and distribute data from the satellite to its wide scientific user community.
Iran’s salt desert, Dasht-e Kavir. Credits: European Space Imaging (EUSI).
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