Bakken from Space

I have a little traveling to do today as I head back east to New York City for an AIA lecture. Ordinarily I’d make some quip about heading to the bright lights of the Big City.

But, as these very recent NASA photographs from space show, the bright lights are now much closer than the east or west coasts. The Bakken Oil Patch now lights up the North Dakota sky, and like the brights lights of New York, it represents both prosperity and heartbreak, affluence and poverty, hopes and miss opportunities. Now, I’m getting carried away.

The detail of the Bakken Oil Patch is even more insane. The dots immediately to the east of the swarming glow of the Bakken are Minot and Bismarck. The glows on the far right of this photo are Fargo in the lower right and Grand Forks, center right.