Images

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Dan Powers (USGS PCMSC) and Rachel Marcuson (USGS PCMSC) prepare to deploy a Gomex sediment corer from the R/V Snavely in the Mokulumne River near confluence of San Joaquin River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, CA.

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

Brett Tipple (University of California, Santa Cruz) collects a sample of charcoal and soil adjacent to a gully forming on a hillslope above Sonoma Creek, which was burned by the Nuns wildfire in October 2017.

Mokelumne River near confluence with the San Joaquin River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, CA, looking downstream, with Cordell Johnson (USGS PCMSC) and Rachel Allen (USGS PCMSC) collecting data from the R/V Fast Eddy.

Mokelumne River near confluence with the San Joaquin River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, CA, looking downstream, with Cordell Johnson (USGS PCMSC) and Rachel Allen (USGS PCMSC) collecting data from the R/V Fast Eddy.

Orthophoto (GigaPan) of the former Elwha Dam and former Lake Aldwell, on the Elwha River, Washington, compiled from ultra high-resolution images collected with a Ricoh GR camera operating at 2-second intervals, mounted on a Cessna 172 piloted by Rite Bros. Aviation and processed using Structure-from-Motion techniques.

Orthophoto (GigaPan) of the former Glines Canyon Dam and former Lake Mills, on the Elwha River, Washington, compiled from ultra high-resolution images collected with a Ricoh GR camera operating at 2-second intervals, mounted on a Cessna 172 piloted by Rite Bros. Aviation and processed using Structure-from-Motion techniques.

Orthophoto of the mouth of the Elwha River in Washington. The orthophoto was compiled from images collected with a Ricoh GR camera operating at 2-second intervals and mounted on a Cessna 172 piloted by Rite Bros. Aviation.

Bird's eye view of the ISA 24th Council

The view from one of two video cameras atop the Dream Inn hotel in Santa Cruz, California, that overlook the coast in northern Monterey Bay. This view, from camera 1, looks eastward over Santa Cruz Main Beach and boardwalk.

USGS and Geological Survey of Canada scientists sample sediment cores collected from the sea floor along the Queen Charlotte Fault. This was taken while they were working with (or in) the Geological Survey of Canada.

(Left to right) Danny Brothers (USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center [PCMSC]), Peter Haeussler (USGS Alaska Science Center), Maureen Walton (PCMSC), and Jamie Conrad (PCMSC) select seafloor sediment samples from cores collected along the Queen Charlotte-Fairweather fault.

The natural oil seep in this photo is located in Pescadero Creek County Park, where the Canyon Trail crosses Tarwater Creek. The oil is black, has a taffy-like consistency, and smells like motor oil.

The Half Moon Bay oil field is one of the oldest oil fields in California and was first developed during the 1880s. Since then, the field has produced an estimated 60,000 barrels of oil from about 19 wells.