Richards Island
- Terra MODIS
- 25 July 2003
- 21:30 UTC
At 2,165 km² in area Richards Island is the largest island of the Mackenzie River delta. The main channel of the Mackenzie River forms the eastern boundary to the island and the narrower Reindeer Channel marks the islands western limit. Its extremely low-lying terrain located amidst a maze of shifting river channels, wetlands and lakes makes delimiting the island's 80 km by 40 km extent difficult. The northern shores of the island face the waters of the Beaufort Sea.
As much as a quarter of the interior of the island is water, with several hundred small lakes (averaging 33 ha in size) creating a complex network of interconnected shallow water-bodies and streams divided by larger delta channels. Many of these lakes are thermokarst formations — water-filled depressions formed by partial melting of the underlying permafrost.
image: MODIS rapid response project at nasa/goddard space flight center
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