Images

At left, USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center scientists Pete Dal Ferro, Jenny White, and Joanne Thede Ferreira deploy a platform at the Lower station, where the depth of the bay floor is 1 m below MLLW. Photograph taken February 2, 2011, by Jessie Lacy.

Photographs from Arahama beach on the Sendai coastal plain taken (A) before (April 11, 2010) and (B) after (May 4, 2011) the tsunami show damage to vegetation, landscape, and buildings. The buildings at far right and left were completely destroyed; all that remains are their foundations.

USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center field crew showing off the new magnetometer, named Magnetron, on fantail of Research Vessel (R/V) Parke Snavely.

Satellite photo of Guam from NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite's Advanced Land Imager.

USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center's research vessel R/V Parke Sanvely motors through Alviso Slough in the southern end of San Francisco Bay. Scientists were collecting depth data to make a detailed bathymetric map of the Bay.

USGS researchers from the multidisciplinary Coastal Habitats in Puget Sound (CHIPS) project at the Elwha Dam removal ceremony, September 17, 2011 (left to right): Pat Shafroth, Jon Warrick, Jeff Duda, Guy Gelfenbaum, and Amy Draut.

U.S. Geological Survey geographer Nadine Golden (center, kneeling) works with USGS marine operations staffer Cordell Johnson (right) and a deckhand (left) to deploy a camera sled from the research vessel Coral Sea. The sled is towed close to the seafloor and collects real-time photographs and videos.

The airgun sled is painted orange and suspended from the A-frame.  The three airguns are suspended beneath the sled. The multichannel digital streamer (yellow cable going into the water from the sled) is towed from the the weighted sled to keep it under the ice. This photo shows the number of crew required to safely deploy the airgun sled.

Personal watercraft fitted with sonar and GPS were among the tools used by USGS scientists to map the bottom of shallow coastal waters near the mouth of the Elwha River. This shot was taken August 25, 2011, during a survey conducted just a few weeks before dam removal began.

Healthy coral reef off Port Douglas, Queensland, Australia, where a whitetip shark swims over a high coral cover reef composed of a number of hard coral species.

Jenny (seated) repairing a seismic airgun (sound source) on the R/V Marcus G. Langseth in the Bering Sea, where the USGS collected data in August 2011 for the U.S. Extended Continental Shelf Project.

U.S. Geological Survey scientist collecting elevation data on the bluff of Alaska’s north coast.

USGS geologists, from left, Bruce Richmond, Ann Gibbs, Li Erikson, and Curt Storlazzi pose together on a snowy field in Alaska.

Eider duck eggs in a nest on Arey Island, Alaska. 

The large white radar dome is a former Distant Early Warning Line site, which sits atop a permafrost bluff on Barter Island, Alaska.

Large waves (6 meters /20 feet high) resuspend terrestrial flood sediment on the coral reefs off Puʻukoholā Heiau National Historic Site and Kawaihae Harbor, Hawaiʻi.

USGS scientists Bruce Jaffe and Bruce Richmond visited Japan following the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. They collected time-sensitive data to help determine the height of tsunami waves at various sites and the distances the waves traveled inland.

Four tan cables, each 6 kilometers long, trail behind R/V Marcus G. Langseth. These cables record seismic sound waves that travel down into the Earth and reflect back from layers beneath the seafloor. The green cables provide the sound.

The March 11, 2011, tsunami destroyed most buildings in Yuriage, leaving exposed foundations and scattered debris. The tsunami flow was about 8 m (26 ft) deep here and moved a stone monument off the top of the artificial hill in the background on the left side of the photograph.

Damage as seen in Natori, Japan, in May 2011. The March 11, 2011 magnitude 9.1 earthquake off the east coast of Japan caused an epic tsunami. USGS scientist standing near the wrecked boat, and a car on the road, provide scale. Damage to the building indicates a 10-meter flow depth.

Research vessel (R/V) Marcus G. Langseth, operated by Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory's Office of Marine Operations, can deploy several kilometers of cable to collect seismic data from beneath the seafloor.