Images

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.

Underwater photo of a stressed coral mound in Tumon Bay Marine Preserve in Guam.

Photograph of the coastal region of Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz, California

The USGS, in cooperation with Santa Cruz County and the California Department of Boating and Waterways, studied the seacliffs, ocean floor, and waves of Pleasure Point, California.   We created detailed maps of the seacliffs and ocean floor using LIDAR laser scanners and sonar.

USGS scientists Patrick Barnard (left) and Jeff Hansen navigate personal watercraft equipped with GPS and echo sounders through the waters of San Francisco Bay. They are collecting bathymetric, or depth, information in order to create maps of the bottom of the Bay.

USGS researchers Patrick Barnard and Jeff Hansen surveying the bathymetry offshore of Crissy Field in San Francisco, California, on October 26, 2007. They are using the Coastal Profiling System—personal watercraft equipped with echo sounders and kinematic Global Positioning System (GPS) units. The Golden Gate Bridge is in the background.

USGS Ocean Engineer Gerry Hatcher walks along South Jetty Beach, south of Ventura Harbor in southern California, to record beach elevations using a handheld computer and mobile GPS equipment.

This photograph of the seafloor off the California coast also shows jellyfish in the water column. This photograph was collected as part of the California Seafloor and Coastal Mapping Program.