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[NASA] A Fault Line in Full Bloom

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  1. This is the hidden content, please
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  3. A Fault Line in Full Bloom
 


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March 5
March 13

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Wildflower blooms appear as yellow patches at the center of satellite images centered on Carrizo Plain National Monument. The blooms spread and intensify between March 5 and March 13.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin

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Wildflower blooms appear as yellow patches at the center of satellite images centered on Carrizo Plain National Monument. The blooms spread and intensify between March 5 and March 13.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
March 5March 13

March 5, 2026 – March 13, 2026


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Image Details

Golden wildflowers color the Carrizo Plain and surrounding Southern California landscape in these images captured on March 5, 2026 (left), and March 13, 2026 (right), by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 and Landsat 9, respectively. NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

Whether it qualifies as a

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is in the eye of the beholder, but there is no doubt that California’s Carrizo Plain and the neighboring mountain ranges were awash with color as wildflowers put on their annual show in spring 2026.

Landsat satellites began to show the

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of color in February. By early March, flowers had turned areas around Soda Lake a bright shade of yellow, and by mid-month, they had spread even farther. Yellow wildflower blooms are visible amid the dendritic network of streams flanking the alkaline lake, which
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during drought years. Colors were particularly vibrant across the
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, even decorating meadows along the zipper-shaped
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with splashes of purple due to blooms of
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.

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Wildflowers bloom along the San Andreas Fault in this image acquired on March 13, 2026, by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 9.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin

Winter 2025-2026 brought bouts of rain and variable conditions that benefited wildflowers. Soaking rains saturated soils in November and December, bringing rainfall totals to nearly twice the usual level, according to a

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from the California Department of Water Resources.
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cited in the report showed soil moisture remained well above average for the month of February.

The pulse of

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helped kick-start wildflowers because many seeds need at least a half-inch of rain to wash off their protective coating to germinate, according to
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. The warm, dry periods that followed also helped. Once established, wildflowers benefit from intermittent rainfall rather than constant soaking.

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Wildflowers in Carrizo Plain National Monument on March 7, 2026.
Photograph by Erin Berkowitz

The Wild Flower Hotline

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that west-facing slopes of the Temblor Range were the first places to come alive with hillside daisies (Monolopia lanceolata) accompanied by California goldfields (Lasthenia californica) and forked fiddlenecks (Amsinckia furcata) in March. The display in the Caliente Range was enhanced by a lack of grass thatch, which was burned off in the
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in July 2025.

Reports from experts on the ground indicate that

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(Lasthenia gracilis), also called the needle goldfield, is responsible for the expanse of yellow near Soda Lake. Individual plants are small, but they often grow in disturbed areas just centimeters apart and bloom simultaneously, creating expansive blankets of color.


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March 5
March 13

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A more detailed view shows yellow blooms against a background of green surrounding Soda Lake and several streams to its east.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin

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A more detailed view shows yellow blooms against a background of green surrounding Soda Lake and several streams to its east.
NASA Earth Observatory / Lauren Dauphin
March 5March 13

March 5, 2026 – March 13, 2026


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Image Details

Common goldfield spreads around California’s Soda Lake in these images acquired on March 5, 2026 (left), and March 13, 2026 (right), by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8 and Landsat 9, respectively. NASA Earth Observatory/Lauren Dauphin

In an article for

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, Bryce King, lead field botanist for the California Native Plant Society, described the Lasthenia blooms there as one of many “seemingly unending stretches of color” across the valley bottom. Lasthenia is a “staple” of vernal pools and seasonally wet areas, he wrote, but the synchronicity of blooms on the valley floor and surrounding hills during a March visit was “beyond anything” he had expected.

Teams of NASA scientists are using

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to
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and flowering plants, aiming to develop techniques for tracking blooms over broad areas and tools that can support farmers, beekeepers, and resource managers. Fruit, nuts, honey, and cotton are among the many crops and commodities produced by flowering plants.

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Yoseline Angel captures the spectral signature of goldfield flowers in grasslands near Soda Lake on March 14, 2026, by measuring the reflectance of yellow petals and green leaves with a field spectrometer.
NASA/Andreas Baresch

“I would certainly consider this a superbloom,” said Yoseline Angel, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “It’s hard to describe how stunning these wildflowers were from the ground.” 

Angel and Goddard colleague Andres Baresch were in the field in Carrizo Plain National Monument on March 13 taking

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measurements of blooming wildflowers as Landsat acquired one of the images shown above. They are in the process of developing a global flower monitoring system that will integrate observations from the ground with those from space-based sensors such as
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on Landsat 8 and 9 and
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(Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation) on the
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to track the progression of blooms.

“This was the perfect opportunity to test how well our models scale between the ground and satellites,” she said. “We were fortunate to have a huge number of seeds germinate and bloom simultaneously because last year was so dry and this winter was so wet.”

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Gold and purple wildflowers bloom in Carrizo Plain National Monument on March 7, 2026.
Photograph by Erin Berkowitz

NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the 

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. Photos courtesy of Erin Berkowitz and Andres Baresch. Story by Adam Voiland.

Downloads

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March 5, 2026

JPEG (7.26 MB)

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March 13, 2026

JPEG (7.72 MB)

References & Resources

  • Angel, Y., et al. (2025)
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    . Ecosphere, 16(2), e70127.
  • Bureau of Land Management (2026, February 9)
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    . Accessed March 19, 2026.
  • California Department of Water Resources (2026, March 16)
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    . Accessed March 19, 2026.
  • Flora (2026)
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    . Accessed March 19, 2026.
  • The Globe Program (2025, May 14)
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    . Accessed March 19, 2026.
  • KQED (2025, April 8)
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    Accessed March 19, 2026.
  • National Park Service (2026)
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    . Accessed March 19, 2026.
  • Rahimi, E. & Jung, C. (2025)
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    . Journal of Ecology and Environment, 49,05.
  • The Tribune (2026, March 13)
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    . Accessed March 19, 2026.  
  • The Wild Flower Hotline, via Spotify (2026, March 13)
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    . Accessed March 19, 2026.
  • Theodore Payne Foundation (2024, March 15)
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    ? Accessed March 19, 2026.
  • U.S. Drought Monitor (2025, December 4)
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    . Accessed March 19, 2026.

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