Images

Image from video camera overlook the coast at Sunset State Beach in Watsonville, CA. Every half hour during daylight hours, the camera shoots video for 10 minutes. This snapshot is the first frame in the 10-minute sequence.

USGS scientists aboard R/V Bold Horizon at the dock in San Diego, CA, preparing for a sampling and data collection research cruise offshore of Oceanside.

I spy with my little (eagle-) eye . . .

After a successful beach survey and installation of remote-sensing cameras on a nearby island, scientists Shawn Harrison and Andrew Stevens spotted this bald eagle near the mouth of the Skagit River, Washington.

View of beach on Whidbey Island, looking north.

View of beach on Whidbey Island, looking south.

Certified USGS divers Jenny White McKee (left) and Tim Elfers, both from the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center in Santa Cruz, California, prepare their gear and tools while on board PCMSC research vessel Parke Snavely.

Conceptual diagram showing impact of sea-level rise and wave-driven flooding on atoll-island groundwater. (A) Current sea level. (B) Future sea level. Sea-level rise will allow for greater wave heights (H) and wave-driven runup (R), resulting in frequent overwash that will contaminate the atoll island’s freshwater lens. Note: Heights are exaggerated.

Snapshot, or first frame of from a 10-minute video taken on April 19, 2018, in Santa Cruz, California. View is from atop a hotel looking down on Cowells Beach, a popular surf spot.

Sediment sampling locations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, California near Little Holland Tract and Liberty Island, 2014 to 2017

The Coastal Storm Modeling System (CoSMoS) makes detailed predictions (meter-scale) over large geographic scales (100s of kilometers) of storm-induced coastal flooding and erosion for both current and future SLR scenarios, as well as long-term shoreline change and cliff retreat.  Resulting projections for future climate scenarios (sea-level rise and s

Flyer to advertise the upcoming USGS Menlo Park Campus Free Public Lecture on April 26, 2018: "The Role of U.S.

USGS geomorphologist Pat Limber drives an all-terrain vehicle equipped with differential GPS, on Ellwood Beach in Goleta, California, collecting topographic, or elevation and contour, data. These data, accurate to about 1 inch (about 2 centimeters) both horizontally and vertically, are used to monitor seasonal beach changes.

USGS geomorphologist Pat Limber drives an all-terrain vehicle equipped with differential GPS, on San Buenaventura Beach south of Ventura Pier, Ventura California, collects topographic, or elevation and contour, data. These data, accurate to about 1 inch (about 2 centimeters) both horizontally and vertically, are used to monitor seasonal beach changes.

Jackson Currie and Alex Snyder of the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center drive personal watercraft (PWCs) offshore of San Ysidro and Oak Creeks, which let out onto Miramar Beach in Montecito, California.

USGS volunteer Josh Brown on Santa Claus Beach, Carpinteria, at the start of a 14-mile walking survey of southern California beaches. The differential GPS equipment carried in the backpack collects elevation, or topographic, data of the beach, accurate to about 1 inch (2 centimeters) both horizontally and vertically.

Jackson Currie of the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center drives a personal watercraft (PWC) offshore of Butterfly Beach in Montecito, California. The equipment on the PWC collects bathymetry, or depth, data which is used to map the nearshore. USGS has been mapping this area twice yearly—every spring and fall—since 2005.

Two USGS scientists operate personal watercraft equipped with sonar and GPS along the beachfront off San Ysidro Creek, near Fernald Point in Montecito, California. They will use the data collected to create bathymetric (depth) maps.

Footprints in mud layer deposited on the sand at Miramar Beach in Montecito, California, by January 9 flood waters coming down San Ysidro Creek.

Shruti Khanna (left, California Department of Fish and Wildlife) and Judy Drexler (USGS California Water Science Center) on the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center’s research vessel Parke Snavely during fieldwork in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

Patches of dark sand cling to an instrument package that collected data for approximately two weeks at the Mokelumne River site—evidence that currents at the site were strong enough to carry sand, which is heavier than mud, probably during elevated river flows following two storms in the watershed.

USGS physical scientist Cordell Johnson, at left, and USGS research oceanographer Jessie Lacy, both from the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, guide a tripod with instruments into the waters of the Mokelumne River near the confluence with the San Joaquin River. The Mokelumne is part of the vast Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in California,&nbs