Images

Cover image for timelapse at Lake Aldwell Delta, Elwha River, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. 

Cover image for timelapse at Former Lake Mills, Elwha River, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. 

Cover image for timelapse at Glines Canyon Dam, Elwha River, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. 

Cover image for timelapse at Lake Mills Delta, Elwha River, on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. 

Honorees pose with their awards at the 77th DOI Honor Awards Convocation on May 8, 2024.

Distinguished Service Award for Research Geologist Curt Storlazzi, presented on May 8, 2024.

Overview map of the Mississippi River delta showing subaerial birdfoot morphology formed by distributaries.

The United States has ECS in seven offshore areas: the Arctic, Atlantic (east coast), Bering Sea, Pacific (west coast), Mariana Islands, and two areas in the Gulf of America.  The U.S. ECS area is approximately one million square kilometers – an area about twice the size of California.

Underwater image of artificial reef structures developed by University of Miami researchers. The experimental structures were installed near Miami in an effort to help restore damaged coral reefs and protect coastal environments.

Laboratory and facilities at the Ofu unit of the National Park of American Samoa.

USGS physical scientist Joshua Logan prepares geodetic survey control points within Jenkinson Lake reservoir, downstream of a watershed burned in the 2021 Caldor Fire, El Dorado County, California. 

Bathymetric map of Jenkinson Lake, El Dorado County, California, mapped by sonar surveys after the 2021 Caldor Fire.

Location Map showing the Sur Pockmark Field outlined in green, individual pockmarks are shown as small red dots. This study focuses on the largest section of the pockmark field, from the Lucia Chica Channel down to the San Simeon Channel. AUV surveys are outlined in white and the offshore wind commercial leases are outlined in gray.

A diagram illustrating how the patterns of erosion and deposition associated with three sediment gravity flows could produce the stacked pockmarks and lateral migration observed in AUV-collected Chirp profiles. Long, uneventful episodes of hemipelagic drape (a, d, g, j) are intermittently interrupted by sediment gravity flows that either: 1b.

Researchers Brian Atwater and Wendy Grant Walter conducting prior paleotsunami research at Salmon River estuary, Oregon.

Diagram showing the sequence of land subsidence during an earthquake, followed with sand deposited by a tsunami.

Sediment core with tidal silt, tsunami sand, and marsh peat collected from the Salmon River estuary, Oregon.

Sediment core with tidal silt, tsunami sand, and marsh peat collected from the Salmon River estuary, Oregon.

Map showing location of Salmon River estuary, Oregon. Yellow dots represent estuaries, lagoons, and lakes with evidence of the 1700 tsunami.

View of Salmon River estuary, Oregon, from above. Sediment cores were collected from marshland toward the upper left of the image.

USGS scientists SeanPaul La Selle and Jason Padgett collecting sediment cores at the Salmon River estuary, Oregon.