Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

GCMRC Publications, Archived Documents, and Southwest Historic Repeat Photography Collection

The U.S. Geological Survey's Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center (GCMRC) provides the public and decision makers with relevant scientific information about the status and trends of natural, cultural, and recreational resources found in those portions of Grand Canyon National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area affected by Glen Canyon Dam operations.

Southwest Historic Repeat Photography Collection

The USGS Southwest Repeat Photography Collection (formerly called the Desert Laboratory Repeat Photography Collection), was founded at The Desert Laboratory Research Station on Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, Arizona by USGS scientists Dr. Robert Webb and the late Dr. Ray Turner. It is now housed and maintained in Flagstaff, Arizona by SBSC and GCMRC. The Library is inventorying and scanning the Collection and provides data and digital images upon request.

The Collection contains repeat photographs taken for a variety of research purposes that date from the late 1800s to the present. Geographically, the Collection’s materials range from Utah’s canyonlands south to the Grand Canyon, Sonoran Desert and borderlands of Arizona and Mexico, as well some images from Kenya, in eastern Africa. Permanent 'stake' numbers were assigned to each location, or photo collection point. The Library stores the film and any field notes associated with each stake location in a secure environment. There are approximately 5200 stake folders in the Collection, and about 35,000 film negatives. Data about the stake locations, photographers, and repeat dates is maintained in a Library database.

Examples of images from the Collection can be found here: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/southwest-biological-science-center/science/repeat-photography-archives-southwest and here: https://doi.org/10.5066/F72R3Q5W.

To request images or information from the Repeat Photography Collection, see contact information below. The Collection’s data is not available online as only a fraction of the Collection has been digitized.

 

GCMRC Archived Documents

The GCMRC library’s searchable publications database (gcmrc.gov/publications/library) is no longer available online; however, GCMRC will provide digital materials upon available by request. Print and film holdings do not circulate outside of the SBSC/GCMRC building.

Search online USGS GCMRC publications by year on the GMCRC Publications page (non-USGS publications are available upon request).

The Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center’s (GCMRC) archives contain materials associated with research and monitoring science activities from the 1990s to present. The archives contain some Colorado River historic documents as well as materials that were produced by Glen Canyon Environmental Studies, the science center that pre-dated and evolved into GCMRC.

GCMRC science activities include:

  • Adaptive Management
  • Aquatic Ecology
  • Cultural Resources
  • Humpback chub, Rainbow trout and other fishes in the Colorado River
  • Lake Powell
  • Plant Communities
  • Power Production
  • Recreation
  • Sediment and Geomorphology
  • Water Quality

Online publication searches: GCMRC will run searches for materials upon request or will assist in discovery of reference or research materials. To request a document, please provide as much of this information as possible:

  • Primary or first author
  • Year published
  • Title (or title keywords)
  • Keywords or subject matter

In addition to search requests, there are several other ways to access information:

Note that references to non-U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) products do not constitute an endorsement by the DOI.

Contact Meredith Hartwell at mhartwell@usgs.gov for publication requests.