John Schott heads up a Rochester Institute of Technology research team that soon hopes to get a better reading of pollution patterns in local waterways from a new satellite orbiting high above.

Beginning on Thursday, the U.S. Geological Survey will begin making public detailed images taken by the Landsat 8 satellite. With data generated by these images, Schott should be able to chart pollution in Lake Ontario, the mouth of the Genesee River, Long Pond and Braddock, Cranberry and Irondequoit bays.

“One of the things we don’t understand is how patterns change over time,” said Schott, who is now a research scientist at the RIT Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science — a program he helped established in 1985.

Schott heads up a team that includes two other RIT research scientists and two graduate students working out of the imaging science building. (more)http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013305230082&nclick_check=1