Images

Methane bubbles emerging from the seafloor at a seep site colonized by chemosynthetic mussels at ~1000 m water depth on the Virginia margin. Photograph taken by the Global Explorer operated by Oceaneering Inc.

USGS ocean engineers Peter Dal Ferro and Gerry Hatcher, from the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center in Santa Cruz, California, deploying a multicorer to sample the seafloor near an Atlantic margin methane seep site.

It's a bird? It's a plane? It's a drone! USGS drone pilot Emily Sturdivant (seated) demonstrates flying an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), much to the delight of the onlookers. 

Fieldtrip participants at the former San Clemente Dam site.

Hill-shaded bathymetric, backscatter, and photographic data collected by NOAA and the USGS. Backscatter data give indications of seafloor character. In general, low-backscatter intensity (blue) corresponds to finer-grained material, whereas high-backscatter intensity (orange) corresponds to coarser substrate.

The USGS conducted surveys on the inner continental shelf of the Delmarva Peninsula (shown in green) to complement related datasets previously collected in the area by partners NOAA and BOEM. The inset map shows location of the study area.

The 3DR Solo with GoPro Hero4 camera and gimbal. Coming to a survey area near you soon.

Shawn Harrison uses a GPS-equipped backpack to measure sand elevations during a post-storm survey of beaches in Santa Cruz, California. 

USGS scientist Zafer Defne measures water and sediment movement at Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, New Jersey. Defne is co-author with Neil Ganju of a 2017 study on how to estimate coastal salt marshes’ potential longevity, based on their sediment budgets and the ratio of open water to vegetation.

Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center Oceanographer, Neil Ganju, sharing science at the 2017 Woods Hole Science Stroll outreach event

Map of Edwin B Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, N.J., marsh shoreline change rates.

Basemap of the United States with an overview image of elevation models

Authigenic carbonate supplies the foundation for deep-sea corals, including colonies of bubblegum corals (Paragorgia) seen here. 
 

(A) Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC) with two inputs, slope, and ISO-classified backscatter for the whole survey area. (B) MLC with five inputs, slope, ISO-classified backscatter, bathymetry, hillshaded-relief, and curvature.

USGS research oceanographer Neil Ganju shares a time-lapse video showing salt marsh erosion.

The 3DR Solo with GoPro Hero4 camera and gimbal. Coming to a beach near you soon.

Map of subsea permafrost distributions on the U.S. and Canadian Arctic Ocean margin. The inset map shows the location of the larger map. Subsea permafrost on the Canadian margin was delineated in the 1980s (blue curve). The red curve on the U.S.

Eroding permafrost on Alaska’s Arctic Coast. Inundation of permafrost like this produced subsea permafrost

Sandy Brosnahan (left) and Jon Borden at Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) training in Santa Cruz, California.

Seafloor photograph of a spider crab, sediment, rocks, taken by the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center SeaBOSS during a deployment off the R/V Connecticut in Long Island Sound

Long Island Sound Survey mapping team.  This project is a collaboration of several agencies and institutions including Univ of Connecticut, Univ of New Haven, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, NOAA, LDEO, USGS