Aerial Photo Comparison
To illustrate land-use, environmental,
and geologic-hazard changes over
time based on historical aerial
photography, a comparison between
the 1938 Salt Lake Aqueduct and 2006
USDA National Agriculture Imagery
Program photography was created
using four locations between Salt Lake
City and Alpine, Utah.

Historical aerial photography is used in geologic, geotechnical, and environmental assessment and investigation projects; land-use planning; ASTM Phase I Environmental Site Assessments; projects documenting land-use, geomorphologic, geologic-hazard, and other changes that may have occurred in a particular area; and, as a historical archive.

Each aerial photography compilation includes digitally scanned aerial photography frames in TIFF format, explanatory text, Google Earth index with reduced resolution thumbnail images of the frames, an ESRI Shapefile for use with GIS software, and one or more frame center point index sheets in Adobe PDF format. Scanned, original project indexes are included, if available.

Due to the large file sizes of scanned aerial photography frames, these files are only available on DVD from the Natural Resources Map & Bookstore. Several other aerial photography compilations are planned for publication in 2009.

Aerial Photography Compilations

• Bowman, S.D., and Beisner, K., 2008, Historical Aerial Photography; 1938 Salt Lake Aqueduct Project; Salt Lake, Utah, and Wasatch Counties, Utah: Utah Geological Survey Open-File Report 537, 2 p., 1 plate, DVD.
  Text (pdf)
  Google Earth Index (kmz)
  GIS Shapefile (zip)

• Bowman, S.D., Beisner, K., and Corey, U., 2009, Historical Aerial Photography, 1937 Farm Service Agency AAJ/AAK Project, Davis, Weber, and Box Elder Counties, Utah: Utah Geological Survey Open-File Report 540, 2 p., 1 plate, DVD.
  Text (pdf)
  Plate 1 (pdf)
  Google Earth Index (kmz)
  GIS Shapefile (zip)

• Bowman, S.D., Beisner, K., and Unger, C., 2009, Compilation of 1970s Woodward-Lundgren & Associates Wasatch fault investigation reports and oblique aerial photography, Wasatch Front and Cache Valley, Utah and Idaho: Utah Geological Survey Open-File Report 548, 3 p., 6 plates, DVD.
  Texts (pdf): Intro, Northern Portion, Southern Portion, Cache Valley
  Plates (pdf): 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B
  Google Earth Indexes (kmz): Northern Portion, Southern Portion, Cache Valley
  GIS Shapefile (zip)