The aerial photo from 1952 is black and white and doesn’t have the infrared imaging capability of Landsat, but it has something that Landsat doesn’t—very high resolution.

It’s possible to locate trees and buildings in this image. Zooming in to an area near the lake is a location that is cultivated cropland. The sharp corners mark the different fields.

Land here is divided into sections of 1 square mile. These extreme closeups show an area of land covering approximately six sections. This area shows three sections across and two sections high.

A closer look shows farm buildings, with a shelterbelt of trees beside them.

Later Landsat images reveal that those fields and structures are underwater.

 

* = Location of farm structures shown in the aerial photo closeup.

Imagery

Every picture has a story to tell
Sept. 24, 1952, USGS Aerial Photo Single Frames — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA
Aug. 29, 1984, Landsat 5 (path/row 29/29) — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA
July 14, 2002, Landsat 5 (path/row 29/29) — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA
Aug. 11, 2018, Landsat 8 (path/row 29/29) — Lake Thompson, South Dakota, USA

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