Images

A core section from Kahiltna Glacier at 3,055 m (10,023 feet) on September 30, 2024, showing ice layers in finegrained snow. These "internal accumulation" layers form when water from surface melt percolates into the snowpack and refreezes.

These are large glaciers, and even with a helicopter they make you feel very small. Here the scale of the crevasses is illustrated by the small helicopter shadow. This is typical of the complicated topography and significant relief that is common on larger glaciers in Alaska.

Green Aurora Borealis over Lemon Creek Glacier, Alaska.

USGS uses small uncrewed aerial systems, also known as drones for science, to survey walrus herds and carcasses on remote Alaskan beaches. The USGS visual observer, Christina Ahlstrom, keeps her eyes on the survey drone while the remote pilot prepares it to survey the walrus herd that is visible in the distance behind her on the beach. 

Aerial survey drone prepared for flight positioned on the beach near walrus calf carcasses. When sea ice retreats from large regions of the Chukchi Sea large herds of female and young walruses come to shore to rest.

Orange streams are increasingly common in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska. The orange stream color reflects oxidized iron, but also often indicates elevated heavy metal concentrations. Our ongoing study aims to document these occurrences and the timing of their onset.

Orange streams are increasingly common in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska. The orange stream color reflects oxidized iron, but also often indicates elevated heavy metal concentrations. Our ongoing study aims to document these occurrences and the timing of their onset.

Orange streams are increasingly common in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska. The orange stream color reflects oxidized iron, but also often indicates elevated heavy metal concentrations. Our ongoing study aims to document these occurrences and the timing of their onset.

Sign along a wall adjacent to a parking lot in downtown Anchorage warn motorists and passersby about the hazard presented by unreinforced masonry walls. 

Streamflow measurement at the U.S. Geological Survey Chester Creek streamgage. U.S. Geological Survey hydrologic technician using an acoustic Doppler current profiler to measure streamflow. 

The photo is of two Long-billed Murrelets seen near Grewingk Glacier in Kachemak Bay, Cook Inlet, Alaska. This pair of uncommon visitors was spotted in Kachemak Bay during the annual USGS survey of seabirds and small pelagic fish in Cook Inlet.

USGS staff sample the Yukon River for cyanide after a heap leach failure occurred upstream at the Eagle Gold Mine in the Yukon, Canada.

Orange streams are increasingly common in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska. The orange stream color reflects oxidized iron, but also often indicates elevated heavy metal concentrations. Our ongoing study aims to document these occurrences and the timing of their onset.

Orange streams are increasingly common in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska. The orange stream color reflects oxidized iron, but also often indicates elevated heavy metal concentrations. Our ongoing study aims to document these occurrences and the timing of their onset.

A scientist is examining the cable number from a set of legacy borehole sites for permafrost ground temperature monitoring in Utqiagvik, Alaska (part of USGS research at the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory from the 1950s to 1970s).

A scientist is holding the cable top at a recently relocated site for permafrost ground temperature monitoring in Utqiagvik, Alaska (part of USGS research at the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory from the 1950s to 1970s).

A scientist is walking by a set of legacy borehole sites for permafrost ground temperature monitoring in Utqiagvik, Alaska (part of USGS research at the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory from the 1950s to 1970s). Some of the wooden housings that covered these boreholes have since toppled over; others are submerged in pools of the thawing landscape.

Orange streams are increasingly common in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska. The orange stream color reflects oxidized iron, but also often indicates elevated heavy metal concentrations. Our ongoing study aims to document these occurrences and the timing of their onset.

Orange streams are increasingly common in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska. The orange stream color reflects oxidized iron, but also often indicates elevated heavy metal concentrations. Our ongoing study aims to document these occurrences and the timing of their onset.

Orange streams are increasingly common in the Brooks Range of northern Alaska. The orange stream color reflects oxidized iron, but also often indicates elevated heavy metal concentrations. Our ongoing study aims to document these occurrences and the timing of their onset.

USGS is flying drones for science, small uncrewed areal systems (sUAS), to surveys walruses when they rest on shore. The sUAS makes minimal sound due it is broad wing and is flown high above the walrus herds to enables survey data collection with minimal risk to walruses.