Images

A view of a vegetated inland coastline overlooking the water on Dauphin Island, Alabama. The island protects mainland Alabama’s coastal communities and resources from storms, while also providing recreational opportunities (fishing, beach tourism, etc.) and other economic benefits to the local community and state.

Aerial photograph looking southwest along Breton Island, Louisiana, taken July 2013

The USGS collaborates with NASA, the University of Florida, National Park Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to assess coastal erosion hazards affecting space program infrastructure, habitat, and wildlife populations.

A short marsh push core, exhibiting a sandy event layer on top, collected from Point aux Chênes, Mississippi marsh during sample collection in October 2018 for sediment and radiochemical analyses.

Looking south along the Point aux Chênes, Mississippi marsh shoreline during sample collection in October 2018; sediment probe located at the shoreline is used to assist in aligning sample collection along shore perpendicular transect.

USGS Research Oceanographer Lauren Toth and Oceanographer Anastasios Stathakopoulos study a coral-reef core in the USGS’s Core Archive in St. Petersburg, Florida. Photo: Dominique Gallery, USGS.

“The ocean is the closest I can get to an unexplored world, without going into space... I mean, I feel a deep connection to the ocean and its constant rhythms, but when I visit, there's a new discovery or appreciation every time.

Two USGS scientists collect a marsh sediment push core in Grand Bay in October, 2018.

Diadema antillarum, the long-spined sea urchin, is an ecologically important species in Caribbean coral reef habitats where it controls algal growth and coverage and helps keep reef surfaces clear for corals to grow and settle. In early 2022, the remaining D. antillarum populations began experiencing mass mortality in the Caribbean.

Parrotfish grazing on coral within an Acropora palmata framework in Buck Island Reef National Monument

Photo shows a dead, relict reef framework built by the elkhorn coral, Acropora palmata in Buck Island Reef National Monument, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.

An egret walks in the shallow surf of an undeveloped beach on Dauphin Island, Alabama, with buildings viewed in the background from a different area on the island.

A reef in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary with little living coral and extensive bioerosion. Photo taken under research permit number FKNMS-2016-085-A1. Credit: USGS, Ilsa Kuffner.

Research Oceanographer Lauren Toth and student volunteer Liz Whitcher drill a coral-reef core from a reef off Key West, Florida, in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Photo taken under research permit FKNMS-2015-058. Credit: Anastasios Stathakopoulos, USGS.

Landsat 5 captured this image of the Tampa Bay, Florida area on March 22, 1991.  

Bands 7,2,1 

Image processed at Center for Coastal Geology, St. Petersburg, Florida.

A colorful sunrise appears over the horizon of a calm ocean offshore of Jensen Beach, Florida. USGS Scientist RC Mickey collects data for location and elevation of sea turtle crawls and associated beach profiles this stretch of coastline.

A modern coral reef in Dry Tortugas National Park. There is little living coral and high rates of bioerosion. Photo taken under research permit number DRTO-2018-SCI-0005. Credit: Lauren Toth, USGS

Relict Holocene coral-reef framework in the Florida Keys. Like many reefs in the western Atlantic, reefs here were just a few coral species: primary Acropora palmata and Orbicella spp. Recent disturbances have led to declines in the populations of those corals and relative increases in the abundance of more weedy taxa.

Acropora palmata coral-reef framework in the Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida Keys built more than 3000 years ago. That framework, which serves as the foundation for all of the critical ecosystem services reefs provide to society, is now rapidly eroding away.

Waiāhole Beach Park near Mokoli'i, Oahu, Hawaii, in an area without dunes. Photo by Michael Slattery, USGS.

Driftwood on the edge of a sandy beach, against the background of the Fire Island breach, with the other edge of the breach in the background.