MASTER Airborne Multispectral Imagery of Western US Volcanic Landforms

Fifty spectral bands of calibrated radiance data were collected by the MASTER airborne instrument during 11 flights over the western United States in September and October 2004. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration produced this dataset, which provides georeferenced imagery at approximately 10-meter resolution across visible to thermal infrared wavelengths. A primary focus of the deployment was mapping volcanic landforms.

Use Cases

• Mapping volcanic features and geological structures using 50-band spectral radiance data.
• Validating satellite-derived land surface temperature and emissivity products with coincident airborne thermal infrared bands.
• Analyzing surface composition and vegetation health across diverse western US landscapes from visible to shortwave infrared wavelengths.
• Studying flight path data and instrument configuration for airborne remote sensing campaign planning.

Strengths

• Provides high spatial resolution imagery at approximately 10 meters per pixel.
• Covers a broad spectral range from 0.460 to 12.879 micrometers across 50 discrete bands.
• Includes extensive ancillary data such as flight paths, instrument configuration, and summary information for each of the 11 flights.
• Data is cross-platform, appearing on both Data.gov and NASA Earthdata, indicating curation and importance.

Limitations

• Specific row counts, file sizes, and exact column names are unavailable from the provided sources.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date: Data.gov lists 2026-03-13, while NASA Earthdata lists 2004-10-14, suggesting potential metadata inconsistency.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data collected by the MODIS/ASTER Airborne Simulator (MASTER) instrument aboard a Cessna Caravan aircraft.

Time Range

2004-09-15 to 2004-10-14

Freshness

2026-03-13 01:00:08.354178

Geography

California, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado, U.S.