Washington Shoreline Photos

molywi writes "Between 1992 and 1997, the Washington State Department of Ecology acquired oblique aerial photography of the state's entire 2,500 miles of marine shoreline. The collection of over 10,000 photographs provides a valuable educational monitoring tool for coastal managers and the public. The true-color photos comprise a continuous series, panning left to right along the shoreline. The photos were taken to optimize sun angle, shoreline orientation, and low tides. Oblique photos are useful for interpreting bluff geology and land-sliding, riparian vegetation, and shoreline modifications such as bulkheads and seawalls."

Comments

How many miles?

[Euphonious Coward]

Don't those Washingtonians (or editors) know that there's no such thing as the length of a coastline? Coastlines are fractal: the closer you look, the longer they get. It's one of the few really fundamental mathematical discoveries of the last century.

2500 miles, my foot!

Re:How many miles?

[Scott Carnahan]

Coastlines are fractal: the closer you look, the longer they get.

Both the ocean and the continent are made of atoms, so the fractal approximation breaks down when you look too closely, and you end up with a finite path length. For the purposes of aerial photography, you might as well take a minimal cover of the coast using discs of radius ~1km and sum their diameters. Small crinkles are completely irrelevant.

It's one of the few really fundamental mathematical discoveries of the last century.

This sounds like a troll, but there is a shred of truth hidden inside. There have been plenty of deep, fundamental mathematical discoveries in the last century, and I doubt you can find many mathematicians who would agree with your sentiments. All of the people appearing on this page have done very impressive work, and you may notice that fractals are not featured at all. Unfortunately, fractal geometry is one of the few recent advances which can be understood even superficially by people lacking a background in mathematics, and this seems to raise the public profile of the field substantially.

Here's mine

[Gamasta]

So great... mine is right here ;-). From the window in the tower I read and post /.