Images

Research Geologist A. Kate Souders samples fluvial sandstones of the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation (eastern Nevada, USA). 

Research Geologist A. Kate Souders investigates complexly deformed, middle Cenozoic volcaniclastic rocks of the Death Valley region (California, USA).

Research Geologist Marieke Dechesne describes fluvial deposits of the Paleocene Raton Formation (Raton Basin, Colorado, USA). 

Strongly deformed Paleoproterozoic granitic intrusions in biotite schist (Spaghetti Canyon, Lower Granite Gorge, Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA). 

The Colorado River, brown from heightened suspended load following rains, flows through Paleoproteroic basement and overlying Cambrian Tapeats Sandstone in the Grand Canyon (Arizona, USA).

View to the west across Death Valley (California, USA) to the Panamint Mountains. Alluvial fans (foreground) and the salt lake playa of the Badwater basin (middle ground) occupy the basin floor.

Intermountain West Project members Adam Hudson and Michael Frothingham inspect young aeolian deposits of the San Juan River corridor (Bluff, Utah, USA). 

Photography of split sediment cores is calibrated for color/light. This example is from Lake Lucille, Alaska.

USGS UAS pilot Mark Bauer (NUSO) conducts lidar mapping flight over Ackerson Meadow in November 2023

Footprints found in White Sands National Park were dated to the Last Glacial Maximum by USGS Research Geologists Kathleen Springer and Jeff Pigati.

Photograph of the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA. Photo taken on September 8, 2023.

In August 2023, the USGS National Uncrewed Systems Office (NUSO) participated in a collaborative field campaign to collect remote sensing data over agricultural crop fields in California's Central Valley. Hyperspectral satellites were commissioned in coordination with hyperspectral UAS flights at an altitude of 300 feet above ground level.

Boardwalk through the Bonanza Creek Long-Term Ecological Research Site near Fairbanks, Alaska

In August 2023 the NUSO flew UAS equipped with custom methane-detecting sensors over Interior Alaska to support USGS and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Research and Development research into low-cost ways to measure methane emissions.

NUSO researchers reviewing hyperspectral data acquired by UAS flown over crops at Firebaugh, CA

UAS in flight at the Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado

Matt Burgess (NUSO) checking the hyperspectral sensor externally mounted to a UAS (held by Joe Adams NUSO) prior to flights in California

USGS remote pilot Victoria Scholl flying a UAS at the Bonanza Creek Long-Term Ecological Research Site near Fairbanks, Alaska

USGS researcher Joe Adams preparing a UAS for flight at the Bonanza Creek Long-Term Ecological Research Site in Alaska

Matt Burgess (NUSO) providing shade to remote pilot Victoria Scholl (NUSO) as she flies a UAS over crops in California

Dense point cloud generated using UAS photogrammetric techniques with natural color based on imagery acquired at the Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in Colorado.

Collaborators Kristen Manies (Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center), Joe Adams (National Uncrewed Systems Office, NUSO), Victoria Scholl (NUSO), Brian Gullett U.S.