[NASA] Contours of the James Bay Lowlands

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3. Contours of the James Bay…

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March 26, 2026

Early spring around Hudson Bay in northern Canada is largely indistinguishable from winter. Sea ice still clings to land, and the boggy lowlands remain frozen. In the dulled tones of the boreal landscape, however, snow helps accentuate the area’s subtle topography. In late March 2026, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station captured this photo of frozen channels feeding Hannah Bay—a southern offshoot of James Bay, which is itself an extension of Hudson Bay.

Some of the patterns visible in the photo relate to the region’s ice age history. During the Pleistocene Epoch, the

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covered most of present-day Canada. It centered on

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, where its immense weight depressed the land. Since the Last Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago, the ice has retreated and the land has been bouncing back. Glacial isostatic adjustment, or

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, is relatively rapid around southern Hudson Bay; the surface continues to rise about

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, or 1 meter per century.

The process has left a fingerprint on the newly emerged land. In this photo, faint, closely spaced ridges parallel the shore of ice-covered James Bay at the terminus of the Harricana river. These

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formed from tidal action reworking sands and silts along the shore, with newer ridges developing along the water as land rises and relative sea level drops.

The Harricana and adjacent waterways flow through boreal peat bogs, or muskeg, in the Hudson Bay Lowlands on their journey out to sea. As the world’s

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, the lowlands store significant amounts of soil carbon. Elsewhere around the bay, the landscape retains features

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, such as

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and

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.

With the approach of summer, the muted colors of the frozen months give way to a more varied palette. Peatlands take on a lush, green appearance, and partially decayed organic matter in the peat releases

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that stain the water dark brown

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. Sea ice that has remained attached to the James Bay shoreline for several months typically begins to break up in mid- to late-May, with

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complete by the end of July.

Astronaut photograph 

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was acquired on March 26, 2026, with a Nikon Z9 digital camera using a focal length of 200 millimeters. It was provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the 

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 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The 

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 supports the laboratory as part of the 

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 to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC 

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. Story by Lindsey Doermann.

Downloads

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March 26, 2026

JPEG (8.70 MB)

References & Resources

• EBSCO Research Starters (2024)
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  . Accessed April 14, 2026.
• GRACE Tellus,
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  . Accessed April 14, 2026.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2023, June 17)
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  . Accessed April 14, 2026.
• NASA Earth Observatory (2016, October 1)
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  Accessed April 14, 2026.
• Price, J.S., et al. (1988)
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  . ********* Journal of Botany, 66(12): 2586-2594. 
• Rice, J.M., et al. (2024)
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  . Quaternary Science Advances, 13, 100123.

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