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| Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) |
Glossary S and T
A geographic region of semi-arid lands bordering the southern edge of the Sahara Desert in Africa. It is characterized by a long dry season and a short wet season from July to September.
SAST is an interdisciplinary team of senior scientists and engineers from various Federal Government agencies assigned to assess and report on the damage caused by the flood of 1993 and to provide assistance and advice to Federal officials responsible for making decisions with respect to the flood recovery in the Upper Mississippi and Missouri River basin.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Soil Conservation Service changed its name in 1995 to (NRCS).
The SDTS was approved in July 1992 as Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 173. The Standard allows the exchange of digital spatial data between different computer systems. It provides a solution to the problem of spatial data transfer from the conceptual level to the details of physical file encoding. Transfer of spatial data involves modeling spatial data concepts, data structures, and logical physical file structures.
The concept of seasonally distinct land cover regions is based on the unique phenological characteristics of different agricultural crops or natural vegetation, such as the time of spring green-up, magnitude of maximum NDVI (greenness), time of leaf senescence, and seasonal duration of green periods. These regions, based on both spectral and temporal characteristics, can be expected to possess relatively homogenous vegetation types and associations, land use, or mosaics and mixtures of land cover types.
The capability for a customer to order a product and take delivery via the Internet using a password-protected file transfer protocol (FTP) account. Charges vary according to product requested.
Once payment is received, the customer is notified by email that the password-protected FTP files are ready for pick up. The email message also contains file access information including a temporary password and ancillary information including a product disclaimer and information regarding README files and FTP support.
From the date and time the email is sent from the EROS Data Center, the customer has five days to retrieve the temporary data files.
Shading added to an image that makes the image appear to have three dimensional aspects. This type of enhancement is commonly done to satellite images and thematic maps utilizing digital topographic data to provide the appearance of terrain relief within the image.
Interrupted drainage develops on limestone or dolomite beds through the dissolving action of water on the formation. Consequently, streams can disappear into subterranean caverns, often not re-emerging until they have traveled underground for a considerable distance. The term sink (or sinkhole) or karst drainage is sometimes used to describe this unusual stream pattern.
The systematic arrangement of soils into groups or categories based on their characteristics. Broad groupings are made on the basis of general characteristics and subdivisions on the premise of more detailed differences in specific properties.
A subdivision of a soil classification, usually a soil series or other unit based on characteristics that affect the use and management of the soil but which do not vary sufficiently to differentiate it as a separate soil series.
The degree of deviation of a surface from horizontal that is measured as a percentage, a numerical ratio, or in degrees.
The relative proportions of sand, silt, and clay separates in a soil as described by the classes of soil texture.
The U.S. Government transferred commercial sales rights of the Landsat program to the private sector from September 27, 1985 through July 1, 2001, authorizing a contract with Space Imaging. The Landsat program involves satellite remote sensing of the Earth's resources and the dissemination of that data to users worldwide.
Space Imaging is a joint venture/partnership formed by Hughes Aircraft Company and RCA Corporation.
As of July 1, 2001 the commercial sales rights of the Landsat program were transferred back to the U.S. Government. All landsat products are now available from the USGS.
This is a technique of examining individual wavelengths of gamma radiation of rocks in a drill hole.
Mathematical figure closely approaching the geoid in form and size and used as a surface of reference for geodetic surveys. A reference spheroid or ellipsoid is a spheroid determined by revolving an ellipse about its shorter (polar) axis and used as a base for geodetic surveys of a large section of the Earth (such as the Clarke spheroid of 1866 which is used for geodetic surveys in the United States).
The SSURGO data base provides the most detailed level of soils information and was designed primarily for farm and ranch, landowner/user, township, county, or parish natural resource planning and management.
In cartography, a stable base includes those source materials with a better likelihood for dimensional stability and longevity than paper (e.g., Mylar or film).
The STATSGO is a State soil geographic data base designed primarily for regional, multi-State, river basin, State, and multi-county resource planning, management, and monitoring. These data are not detailed enough to make interpretations at a county level.
Involves binocular vision techniques which enables the observer to view imagery simultaneously from two different perspectives to achieve the mental impression of a three-dimensional image.
A product format offered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Oregon State Office for their Western Oregon Digital Data Base (WODDB) system. The format is characterized by either of the two following scenarios:
For systems where the record length to be written is a power of 2 (256, 512, 1024, etc.), this can be used as the logical record length on tape, as long as the block size does not exceed 16,384 bytes. An example of this would look like:
Logical record Length = 1024 Blocking Factor = 4 Block Size = 4096
For systems where the record length to be written is not a power of 2, a static record of 80 bytes is used. An example of this would look like:
Logical Record Length = 80 Blocking Factor = 100 (or 200) Block Size = 8000 (or 16000)
A swath of data is all data received from a spacecraft on a single pass from acquisition of signal (AOS) to loss of signal (LOS).
An aggregate or group of characters, words, records, or information considered as a single unit and recorded on magnetic tape to adjacent physical locations. Blocking is done for convenience of data handling and particularly for ease in error recovery.
The UNIX tar command archives (saves) and extracts (restores) multiple files onto a single tarfile archive. A tarfile is usually a magnetic tape, but it can be any file. This single logical file may span multiple physical tapes. This is known as multi-volume tar. Such tapes do not have a filemark at the end of intermediate volumes, and an archived file may be split across multiple tapes.
TBM header record. The TBM Header contains data type and selection parameters. A terabit is equal to one trillion bits.
TCPs are points that have been registered and/or rectified on an image or a planimetric surface with respect to some horizontal coordinate system and/or vertical datum.
A system of geosynchronous communication satellites launched for the purpose of receiving and relaying data, commands, and telemetry signals to and from all NASA orbiting satellites and space shuttles. The TDRS system will reduce the number of ground stations needed to handle satellite communications and will simplify the handling of a growing volume of satellite telecommunications traffic.
Total mass of living matter that lives or grows on land.
Thematic data layers in a data set are layers of information that deal with a particular theme. These layers are typically related information that logically go together. Examples of thematic data would include a data layer whose contents are roads, railways, and river navigation routes.
Phrase used to describe the middle wavelength ranges in the infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Ranging between 3 microns and 20 microns, most remote sensing applications utilize the 8- to 13-micron range. This is emitted energy whereas other infrared (near infrared) is reflected energy.
This is a visual examination of a thin slice of rock or mineral which is examined under a microscope in plain or polarized light to identify the minerals and their composition and texture.
The TIGRIS is a geographic information system developed by Intergraph Corporation that is used to capture and analyze map features (nodes, lines, and areas).
The TIROS-N is the latest family of satellites originally began in 1960 in the Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite program. Renamed NOAA-6, -7, -8, etc., after launch, these Satellites offer 4 or 5 channel multispectral daily repetitive global coverage.
The TM is a nonphotographic imaging system which utilizes an oscillating mirror and seven arrays of detectors which sense electromagnetic radiation in seven different bands. The thematic mapper sensor is a derivative of the multispectral scanner (MSS) generation of scanners, achieving greater ground resolution, spectral separation, geometric fidelity, and radiometric accuracy.
The term TMA initially referred to Trimetrogon Aerial photography. In recent years, however, SCAR missions have been flown using several different camera systems. Since the term TMA was so well understood by the SCAR community, it was decided to keep TMA as part of the photographic identification.
Map that presents the horizontal and vertical positions of the features represented; distinguished from a planimetric map by the addition of relief in measurable form.
Configuration (relief) of the land surface; the graphic delineation or portrayal of that configuration in map form, as by contour lines; in oceanography the term is applied to a surface such as the sea bottom or a surface of given characteristics within the water mass.
Refers to the point, line, or area features of a data set and the relationships between these features. These relationships are expressed as connections between spatially touching lines, small areas contained within larger areas, lines that make up the sides of an area or polygon, etc. Topology does not provide information as to the features' meanings, only their identity and structural relationships as they define spatial objects.
A name that is derived from a place or a region.
Townships are geographical rather than political divisions defined by a parcel of land bounded on the east side and the west side by meridians six miles apart at its south border and has a north to south extent of six miles. Townships are an element of the United States and Canadian public-land survey systems.
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