The State of Montana is located in the northwestern United States adjacent to the Canadian border. It has a land area of 147,138 square miles and a population of approximately 800,000 people, most of whom live in small towns. Eastern Montana is basically grasslands. The economy there is agricultural based with limited human and financial resources. Western Montana has a well developed tourist economy and an extensive forest products industry.
Bozeman, MT is located in the Gallatin River Valley at the southern end of the Bridger Mountains. Bozeman has a population of approximately 30,000 people and is located at elevation of approximately 4800 feet. The biggest employer in Bozeman is Montana State University, a comprehensive, multipurpose university maintaining programs of instruction, research, and public service. Check out the BigSkyCam for a live look at the mountains around Bozeman.
The information presented here will open several windows on Montana and the people who live and work there.
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How many counties are there in the State of Montana? |
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Estimate the longitude and latitude of the geographic center of Gallatin County. |
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What is the largest city in Gallatin County? |
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Describe the principle landscape features of Gallatin County. |
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Estimate the percentage of Gallatin County that is National Forest or Wilderness. |
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Identify the principal land uses in Gallatin County. |
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Where is the population center of Gallatin County? |
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Which Montana Indian Reservation is closest to Gallatin County? |
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Create your own map, zooming in on Gallatin County's cities, streams, & forests. |
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Color Landform Atlas of the United States |
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MapQuest! Interactive Maps |
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National Atlas of the United States |
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Aerial Photography
A photograph of Montana State University, the City of Bozeman, and the Bridger Mountains may be accessed by clicking the thumbnail image at the left. |
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Aerial Photography
An old aerial photograph of Bozeman. Open the photo using PaintShopPro or some other imaging tool. Estimate the size of the smallest details visible in the photograph. |
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Aerial Photographs & Maps
What advantages to you see in using both maps and photographic data when studying a location or region? |
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Space Shuttle Photograph
STS059-L03-094.jpg local link http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/photoinfo.cgi?PHOTO=STS059-L03-094 remote link Image date: April 1994 Center Lat x Lon: 45N x 111W. Space Craft Altitude: 113 nautical miles. This panoramic, southwest looking, low oblique photograph shows many small mountain ranges that comprise the Rocky Mountains of southwestern Montana and eastern Idaho. Visible are the southern half of Canyon Ferry Lake (bottom center); to the southeast, the snow-covered mountains of northwestern Yellowstone National Park and a small portion of ice covered Yellowstone Lake. The Gallatin Valley and the Gallatin River are located in the center of the image, bounded on the left (east) by the Bridger Mountains. Bozeman, MT is located near the southern end of the Gallatin Valley south and west of the Bridger Mountains. Estimate the percent of the land area that is snow covered. |
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LandSat Photography
http://observe.ivv.nasa.gov/nasa/gallery/landsatapp/landsatapp.html remote link Image date: 09/10/92 Center Lat x Lon: 46N x 111W Many satellite images are extremely colorful. The multispectral remote sensing (MSS) instruments carried on the LandSat and other satellites measure the amount of energy reflected and emitted in several discrete portions, or bands, of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. The various visible and infrared bands were chosen to measure reflected and emitted energy in areas of the spectrum that correspond to known responses of the target materials. These include specific characteristics of land, vegetation, water, rocks, and temperature. In this image, the colors are associated with the following features: Black = waterEstimate the location of the city of Bozeman. What does the image tell you about landscape features in Bozeman relative to the surrounding areas? If the image had been taken in the month of June, in what ways would you expect it to be different? In January? |
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LandSat Multi Spectral Scanner (MSS)
Images of the Gallatin Valley and Bridger Mountains by Prof. Daniel L. Gustafson, Montana State University environmental scientist. What time of year do you think the Gallatin Valley image was taken? Compare the May and September 1992 false color images of the Bridger Mountains. Describe differences in snow cover and vegetation. |
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Visit Virtually Hawaii and work through the "Introduction
to Radar Remote Sensing" tutorial
then answer the following questions:
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Visit the JPL Imaging Radar
WWW site and explore the on-line resources, including the SIR-C/X-SAR
Yellowstone National Park images.
Where did the 1988 fires do the greatest damage?
Visit the Clickable Map of the World to see locations for which SIR-C/X-SAR images are available. |
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Digital Elevation Model data is typically saved in rectangular arrays. Each entry in the array represents the elevation or height of the terrain at an X-Y location associated with the row-column structure of the array. Click on the thumbnail image at the left to view a DEM model of the United States. Estimate the location of Bozeman in the DEM image. |
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As outlined in Understanding
and Using Models (see links at the bottom of this page) DEM
data may be explored using the image processing tool Scion Image.
Following the same Set Scale procedures, select kilometers as the Unit
of measurement and set the Scale to 12.52510 pixels per kilometer.
The Bridger Mountains are located along the left edge of the image and are colored green, yellow, and red. Using the segment tool, measure the length of the Bridger Range in this image. Bozeman is located in the valley south and west of the Bridgers beginning in the area colored deep blue and extending to the west off the left side of the image. The city of Livingston is located east of Bozeman where the deep blue color on the right edge of the image comes to a narrow neck. Using the segment tool, measure the distance from Bozeman to Livingston. The highway distance from Bozeman to Livingston is approximately kilometers. Assuming that the distance you measured is less, how do you explain the difference? |
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dem3D
is a Windows 95 program that displays Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data
in 3D format. DEM data is acquired using radar and displayed using
a variety of landscape/terrain rendering tools.
Download dem3D and the dem3D users manual, install the program, and read
the manual. Next, download and unzip a DEM file
of the Bozeman area [Note: zipped, this file is almost 5 MB]. Open
the unzipped file d45110_a with the program dem3D. Experiment with
the program with the objective of duplicating the image shown at the left.
What advantages does this program offer over Scion Image for analyzing DEM data? On which aspects of data analysis does Scion Image offer superior features? |
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3dem60 is
a somewhat more powerful landscape/terrain rendering tool. Open d45110_a
with this program and duplicate the image shown at the left of the southern
end of the Bridger Mountains. The file 3D TERRAIN RENDERING in the
Help menu will guide you through the necessary steps.
What do you like most about this program? Describe a situation in which someone would need a program of this sort to accurately render terrain. Compare the image rendered by 3dem60 to the photo shown at the lower left. Where would you have to stand relative to the photographer's position to see the Bridger Mountains as shown in the rendering? Use the Fractal option under Open in the File menu to create an artificial terrain. If someone were to show an unknown terrain to you, could you say for sure whether it was real or fractal? If so, how. If not, why not? |
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