Cities
Deserts
Energy
Antelope Valley in southern California is the western part of the Mojave Desert. The San Gabriel Mountains and the Tehachapi Mountains give the valley a triangular shape. The southern edge of the valley is the San Andreas Fault.
While farming is going on in the valley in the more traditional sense, with irrigated fields showing up as bright green circles or rectangles in these Landsat images, farming of a different kind is also going on. With average annual wind speeds of 14 to 20 miles per hour and plenty of clear, sunny days, this part of the desert is on the cutting edge of wind and solar power.
Location
June 9, 1988, Landsat 5 (path/row 41/36) — Antelope Valley, California, USA
June 22, 2010, Landsat 5 (path/row 41/36) — Antelope Valley, California, USA
June 17, 2014, Landsat 8 (path/row 41/36) — Antelope Valley, California, USA
June 28, 2018, Landsat 8 (path/row 41/36) — Antelope Valley, California, USA
June 28, 2018, Landsat 8 (path/row 41/36) — Antelope Valley, California, USA
Antelope Valley, California, USA Additional Imagery & Stories
Solar
After 2010, solar farms began spreading out in various places across the desert. The region has plenty of clear, sunny days, so solar energy makes its...
Urban Growth
A population boom began in this region in the 1980s with increases in defense spending—military and aerospace industries became the area’s primary emp...
Wind
The open spaces and high winds make the northern part of Antelope Valley an ideal wind energy center. It’s also close to Los Angeles, so the length an...
References
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Stringfellow, K., 2017, The Shifting Demographics of Antelope Valley—And Development's Consequences: KCET, accessed December 18, 2018, at https://www.kcet.org/shows/artbound/the-shifting-demographics-of-antelope-valley-and-developments-consequences.
U.S. Census Bureau, [n.d.], Census of Population and Housing: U.S. Census Bureau, accessed December 18, 2018, at https://www.census.gov/prod/www/decennial.html.
U.S. Census Bureau, 2018, QuickFacts—Lancaster city, California: U.S. Census Bureau, accessed December 18, 2018, at https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/lancastercitycalifornia.
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USGS, 2018, The U.S. Wind Turbine Database: USGS, accessed February 13, 2019, at https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/.