NASA researchers will team up with a leading archeologist to use aerial and satellite images to try to identify and map sites along the trail of fabled explorers Lewis and Clark, who opened the American West to development two centuries ago.

Scientists at the U.S. space agency's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi will work with Ken Karsmizki, curator at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Wasco County Historical Museum in Oregon, to combine precision airborne and satellite imagery with detailed historic maps to locate and preserve several of the explorers' sites.

Karsmizki has identified several sites where evidence of the 1804-06 expedition's passage is likely to be found -- including the 1805 winter camp at Fort Mandan, N.D., the 1806 winter camp at Fort Clatsop on the Oregon coast and the upper and lower portage camps at Great Falls, Mont., on the Missouri River.

Meriwether Lewis and his friend William Clark led a 33-member expedition on a 3,700-mile journey to explore the American West. The expedition, proposed by President Thomas Jefferson, was funded by the U.S. government.

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