The Lake Project 20, 2002

(Photo: David Maisel)

In Black Maps: American Landscape and the Apocalyptic Sublime (, 2013), a collection of aerial photographs of environmentally impacted sites, captures surreal images of open-pit mines, clear-cut forests, rampant urbanization and sprawl, and zones of water reclamation. Though beautiful, Maisel's images tell a tragic story about the American landscape, and humankind's conflicted relationship with nature. Black Maps presents more than 100 photos that span Maisel's two-decade career. Here, we take a look at some of the most arresting--from images of decrepit and active mines in Nevada to an eerie, dry lake bed in California.

In his Lake Project series, Maisel photographed Owens Lake, once a 200-square-mile lake on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in California. Beginning in 1939, much of the Owens River was diverted into the Owens Valley Aqueduct to bring water to Los Angeles, causing Owens Lake to dessicate. By 1926, the lake had been essentially depleted, exposing mineral flats and transforming the once-fertile valley into an arid stretch of land. The concentration of minerals in the remaining water of Owens Lake is so high that blooms of microscopic bacterial organisms result, turning the liquid a deep red.

The Mining Project (Butte, Montana 3), 1989

The Mining Project (Butte, Montana 3), 1989. (Photo: David Maisel)

According to Maisel's , the Mining Project had its genesis in 1983 when Maisel began photographing open pit mines from the air after witnessing the clear-cutting of forests in the Pacific Northwest. In mining, sites he found a subject matter that carried forth his fascination with "the undoing of the landscape." Maisel's photographs of active and abandoned tailing ponds are beautiful, yet they are actually full of cyanide.

American Mine (Carlin, Nevada 2), 2007

American Mine (Carlin, Nevada 2), 2007. (Photo: David Maisel)

In the American Mine series, part of Maisel's Mining Project series, Maisel documents, in abstract swaths of color, the open pit mines on the Carlin Trend, the prolific gold mining district in the Western Hemisphere. Located 60 kilometers northwest of Elko, Nevada, mines from the region are said to be the source of mercury emissions, released into the air when the ore is heated during the gold extraction process.

Oblivion, 19n, 2004

Oblivion, 19n, 2004. (Photo: David Maisel)

The subject of Maisel's Oblivion is the vast and populous region Greater Los Angeles. In a return to black-and-white, Maisel captures a gridded cityscape, underscoring the "cyborg nature" of Los Angeles. According to Maisel, the aerial images in Oblivion (which also refer to other ways of imaging, such the X-ray) describe a "potentially desecrated urban fabric."

Terminal Mirage 2, 2003

Terminal Mirage 2, 2003. (Photo: David Maisel)

In his Terminal Mirage series, Maisel captures images of Utah's Great Salt Lake, considered a "terminal" lake, with no naturally occurring outlet. Maisel was inspired by Robert Smithson's apocalyptic writings on the Great Salt Lake, and embarked on an aerial survey of the region, including the site of evaporation ponds covering some 40,000 acres along the eastern and southers shores of the lake, he wrote in .

See more of David Maisel's photographs at his . Black Maps: American Landscape and the Apocalyptic Sublime is available on .

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