Images

Marie Chan Kau, a staff member at American Samoa Community College and a member of the International Tsunami Survey Team, points to the maximum water level reached by the tsunami that struck American Samoa on Sept. 29, 2009. This spot, found in Fagasa, American Samoa, is about about 10 meters above sea level.

Roof moved into the ocean in Fagasa, American Samoa following the tsunami that hit the island on Sept. 29, 2009.

Sediment inundated a building in Pago Pago, American Samoa as a result of a Tsunami that struck the coast on Sept. 29, 2009.

The Native communities’ in-ground food storage facilities are being lost as a result of eroding bluffs and thawing permafrost.

Looking astern, the airgun sled is in its cradle in the center of the photo.  The crew are manually recovering the multichannel streamer and beginning the large figure-8 shape of coiling it on deck. Work at sea occurs 24 hours a day.  In late September, there is ~12 hours of night, resulting in gear recovery at night.

USGS divers Steve Rubin and Reg Reisenbichler laying out a survey transect in the Elwha River in northern Washington.

This photograph shows birds taking flight near Icy Cape on the Chukchi Sea coast of Alaska, an area that provides habitat for a variety of avian species.

USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center’s research vessel R/V Parke Snavely motors on the Nisqually Reach of Puget Sound.

Kelp greenling fish, about 8 inches long, swims above a seafloor of mixed gravel, cobble, and rock near Half Moon Bay, California.

Eric Grossman and Rob Wyland reviewing bathymetry data as it's being collected, on R/V Parke Snavely.

Grand Canyon sand was photographed with a hand-held point-and-shoot camera in a waterproof housing.

USGS research geologist Curt Storlazzi installs an instrument package on the seafloor of Maunalua Bay, Oʻahu. The platform, called a MiniPROBE, hosts six upward-looking acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCP), seven conductivity and temperature (CT) sensors, and eight self-logging optical backscatter sensors (SLOBS).

USGS scientists from the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center (PCMSC) in Santa Cruz, California deploy an instrument called the poking eyeball. The system, developed by PCMSC, was designed to take repetitive microscopic images of the seabed from a tripod on the seafloor.

Helicopter on the deck of a Canadian coast guard ice breaker ship in the Arctic Ocean.

Photo of Elwha River near the Humes Ranch Area in September 2008, showing large woody debris along channel.

Helicopter view of Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St. Laurent (top) and U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (bottom) on the Arctic Ocean. This was during a scientific expedition to map the extended continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean.

Helicopter view of Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St. Laurent (top) and U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (bottom) on the Arctic Ocean. This was during a scientific expedition to map the extended continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean.

USGS researcher Benjamin Jones examines a collapsed block of ice-rich permafrost on Barter Island along Alaska's Arctic coast.

Photograph of the seafloor off the California coast showing coarse sand, shells, and a sunflower sea star. It was taken during a "ground-truthing" survey off of Salt Point, California, in support of the California Seafloor Mapping Program.

Train tracks and overwater structures along Browns Bay in Edmonds, Washington often occur on developed shorelines of Puget Sound. The built environment can interrupt the flow of sediment from back-beach bluffs to the intertidal zone, attenuate and redirect alongshore currents, and reduce upper beach habitat.

Underwater photograph of Tumon Bay Marine Reserve, Guam, showing some of the amazing biologic diversity of coral reefs.