Overview
Students use the image processing software, NIH Imageto view images of Earth taken from the space shuttle. These images may contain faults which the students can locate by viewing the image, and identify by using supplimental maps, label using NIH Image. Once identified the students can use NIH Image to determine the length of the visible portion of the fault, where it has ruptured the Earth's surface.
If the class doesn't have experience using NIH Image,go over the tutorial with the students. Use one image for the students to explore the program and practice drawing on images. Make sure students don't save any work, or they do so to a different directory. Also make sure you have backup copies of the images. Give a demonstration on the "handedness" of lateral faults.

NIH Imageis free software that you can download, a version for Macintosh computers can be downloaded here.

A free PC version of NIH Image,called Scion Image for Windows, is available from Scion Corporation.

Here is a brief NIH Imagetutorial that you can use to familiarize yourself with the program.

Goals:
Students learn to use NIH Imageto access images of Earth taken from the space shuttle. Linear features, such as transform faults, are easily identifiable from space. Offset features can be used to determine the direction that the fault is moving

Central Question:
How can scientists use images taken from outer space to identify faults on the Earth's surface?

Materials for each team:
Access to a Macintosh computer
NIH Imageprogram
Downloadable Fault images
Other resources:
Activity sheets
Fault Handouts
National Geographic Maps
NIH Imagetutorial
for more information about NIH Image.

Setting the stage:
Quickly review faults. If needed, give students instruction on using NIH Image. You may want to go through the instructions as a class before splitting into groups of three or four students per computer. Have the students read the background information given on the Activity Sheet. Review the meaning of linear features (straight lines). Besides faults, discuss other possible sources of linear features (roads, canals, Great Wall of China, etc...). This is a good opportunity to discuss the differences in scale.

Exploration/Investigation
Once the students have read through the introductory information you can let them loose to explore the images.

Bringing it together:
Class discussion
You can have the students discuss their experiences with NIH Imageand what they learned using the program. If possible, project the images on a TV screen and have groups come forward to identify the fault on each of the images.

Assessment:
Study Questions:
1) Why are most of the visible faults on the Earth's surface on transform boundaries?
2) Where are the faults located on subduction zones? On divergent boundaries?
3) Few human structures were visible along these faults, explain why.

Background:
Descriptions of the images-you can share as much or as little of this information as you choose.

Fault 1 STS047-0077-0076
Taklamakan Desert Fault, China
left lateral fault

Fault 2 STS059-0L13-0088
Irrawaddy River Delta Burma,
Right lateral fault image is looking towards the south

Fault 3 STS040-0075-0059
Karakorum Fault Zone, China
left lateral fault

Fault 4 STS067-0709-0002
Black Fault, Atacama Desert, Chile
The Pacific oceanic plate is being subducted at about nine centimeters (3.5 inches) per year beneath the South American continent along much of the west coast of South America. Oceanic/continental convergence of this sort characteristically produces elevation and shortening by folding and thrusting. These structures are well developed in the eastern foothills of the Andes. The western parts of the Andes are characterized by more complex structures, and both normal faults (usually suggestive of extension) and strike-slip faults are present. Illustrated in the picture is the trace of the important Atacama fault, which runs for several hundred kilometers parallel to the coast of Chile and the deep ocean trench. The fault cuts Paleozoic and Mesozoic metamorphic rocks of the Chilean coastal cordillera. The tectonic details of the fault are poorly known at present. The fault is thought to have been active over a long period, and both normal and strike-slip movements have been postulated.

Fault 5
Dead Sea Fault Zone,
Dead Sea and Sea of Galilee Strike Slip, left lateral fault. African and Arabian Plates One of the features most commonly photographed from space, the Red Sea, always provides a powerful reminder that continents can be rifted apart, and that new oceans can form. Precise dating is difficult, but it appears that the Red Sea may have opened as little as 10 million years ago. The Red Sea itself (bottom) is floored by oceanic crust and has a mid-ocean-ridge spreading center, which is an extension of the Carlsberg Ridge in the Indian Ocean. The left fork in the picture is the Gulf of Suez; this is not apparently underlain by oceanic crust but is the tectonic continuation of the Red Sea rift. On the right, by contrast, is the Gulf of Aquaba (Akabar), which splays off diagonally. This is the expression of a quite different tectonic feature, a major left lateral strike slip fault that runs northward along the valley of the Jordan River through the Dead Sea and Lake Tiberias. These lakes occupy the sites of "pull apart" basins formed by parallel splays along the fault. The Sinai Peninsula, center, is occupied mostly by Precambrian metamorphic and igneous rocks. Coral reefs can be seen around the tip of the peninsula and at the mouth of the Gulf of Aquaba.

Fault 6 STS047-0076-0043
Turkmenistan Fault,
Salt flat Right Lateral Fault Arabian and Eurasian Plates Look for offset features Can you see tension fractures???

Fault 7 STS062-0105-0187
Point Reyes Fault line, California
San Andreas Fault (See National Geographic Magazine)

Fault 8 STS028-0096-0029
Nayband Fault, Kerman, Iran
Right lateral fault

Fault 9 STS028-0096-0030
Nayband Fault, Shahdad, Iran
Right lateral fault

Fault 10 STS028-0096-0032
Nayband Fault, Tahrud St., Iran
Right lateral fault

Activity Sheets:
Student Activity sheet can be downloaded and printed from HERE..