For most of the year, the Lena River Delta–a vast wetland fanning out from northeast Siberia into the Arctic Ocean–is either frozen over and barren or thawed out and lush.
After seven months encased in snow and ice, the delta emerges for the short Arctic summer. Green areas are likely the result of organic matter (debris from leaves, branches, and peat) dissolved in the water.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview, and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
