The Long View

One of the more beautiful satellite images I’ve run across is this Ikonos satellite image of Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty”. The Dia Center is debating if and how best to preserve the work for future generations, but it seems that nature is doing some of the work for us.

For nearly three decades Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty” lay underwater in the Great Salt Lake. Since 1999, as drought has lowered the water level, this famous American earth sculpture—a 1,500-foot coil of black basalt rocks—has slowly re-emerged. Now it is completely exposed; the rocks encrusted with white salt crystals are surrounded by shallow pink water in what looks like a vast snow field.

Quote from Melissa Sanford’s article, “The Salt of the Earth”, in the NY Times. Via Pruned, via Land & Living