Above and Beyond: Farewell Spit

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with the NASA Earth Observatory.

All images, illustrations, and videos courtesy of NASA except:

·       Celtic Monster illustration by John Dickson Batten

·       Phosphate mine photo courtesy of Pamlico-Tar River Foundation, Washington, North Carolina

·       Horicon Marsh photos and marsh wildlife photos courtesy of Andrea Gianopoulos

·       Sea creature illustration copyright The National Library of Israel, Shapell Family Digitization Project _and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Geography – Historic Cities Research Project

·       Assateague Island marsh photos courtesy of Lucy Albert

·       Muskrat photo courtesy of Dan Leveille

·       Peat fire photo courtesy of Guillermo Rein

·       Marsh algae photos courtesy of Andrea Gianopoulos

·       Close-up Lake Carnegie satellite image courtesy of the USGS EROS Data Center Satellite Systems Branch

·       Photos of Tigris River and drained Mesopotamian Marshes courtesy of Dr. Michelle Stevens, iraqmarshrestoration.blogspot.com

·       Photo of boatmen in an Iraqi marsh courtesy of Hassan Janali, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

 

Music courtesy of Associated Production Music

Written by Andrea Gianopoulos

Designed by Marc Lussier

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Text, Farewell Spit. South Island of New Zealand. A satellite image of a long sickle-shaped strip of land curving away from the island. Text, On the northern tip of New Zealand's South Island, Farewell Spit stretches nearly 20 miles eastward into the Tasman Sea. A sandy beach lines the north side of the spit along the Tasman Sea, while an intricate wetland ecosystem faces south toward Golden Bay. A highlighted circle frames the spit.

 

Text, The tidal marshes on the spit's southern side are protected by mudflats, which are alternately exposed and inundated with the tidal rhythms of the ocean. A red circle appears around the mudflats on the south side of the curved spit, ribboned with rivers emptying into the bay. Text, the submerged tidal flats are etched with many channels and appear in shades of bluish purple. More than 80 species of wetland birds have been observed at Farewell Spit, and the tidal mudflats are a molting site for 12,000 black swans.