Images

A map of the airborne geophysical survey area in the Medicine Mountains region of Wyoming

Lidar point cloud image of Cedar Key, Florida, an area that experienced severe impacts from Hurricane Idalia in August 2023. The lowest elevations are shaded in blue, while the highest elevations (the tops of trees and buildings) range from orange to red. 

Researchers inject fluorescein dye into Lake Fork Creek, Colorado, in August 2023. This study aims to trace water flow from the historic Sugarloaf mining district into the creek.

Maps showing parts of 23 mineral systems that could host critical mineral resources in the United States.  These areas are used to prioritize data collection and analysis by Earth MRI.

Water tracing dye was injected into a stream in Leadville, Colorado, to identify locations of metal loading and to guide geophysical measurements.

A colony of fire coral about 5 feet underwater in Dry Tortugas National Park in the Gulf of Mexico shows signs of bleaching from recent extreme water temperatures. Photo taken July 26, 2023, by Lauren Toth, USGS.

Coral located in Dry Tortugas National Park in the Gulf of Mexico shows signs of bleaching. Photo taken July 26, 2023, by Lauren Toth, USGS.  

TYPES OF LANDSLIDES

Creep is the imperceptibly slow, steady, downward movement of slope-forming soil or rock. Movement is caused by shear stress sufficient to produce permanent deformation, but too small to produce shear failure.

Debris avalanche: This is a variety of very rapid to extremely rapid debris flow.

Rockfalls are abrupt movements of masses of geologic materials, such as rocks and boulders, which become detached from steep slopes or cliffs. Separation occurs along discontinuities such as fractures, joints, and bedding planes, and movement occurs by free-fall, bouncing, and rolling.

Earthflows have a characteristic "hourglass" shape. The slope material liquefies and runs out, forming a bowl or depression at the head. The flow itself is elongated and usually occurs in fine-grained materials or clay-bearing rocks on moderate slopes and under saturated conditions. However, dry flows of granular material are also possible.

A block slide is a translational slide in which the moving mass consists of a single unit or a few closely related units that move downslope as a relatively coherent mass.

Translational slide: In this type of slide, the landslide mass moves along a roughly planar surface with little rotation or backward tilting.

This is a screenshot taken from a timelapse video of a rising glacial lake from May through August 2023. The video was captured by a USGS Hydrologic Imagery Visualization and Information System (HIVIS) camera. The water level in the lake gradually rises throughout the video and then the water level dramatically decreases towards the end of the video.

Lateral spreads are distinctive because they usually occur on very gentle slopes or flat terrain. The dominant mode of movement is lateral extension accompanied by shear or tensile fractures.

A debris flow is a form of rapid mass movement in which a combination of loose soil, rock, organic matter, air, and water mobilizes as a slurry that flows downslope. Debris flows include <50% fines.

Toppling failures are distinguished by the forward rotation of a unit or units about some pivotal point, below or low in the unit, under the actions of gravity and forces exerted by adjacent units or by fluids in cracks.

Rotational slide: This is a slide in which the surface of rupture is curved concavely upward and the slide movement is roughly rotational about an axis that is parallel to the ground surface and transverse across the slide.

Boulder star coral about 15 feet deep near the shore of Key West, Florida water are bleaching due to recent extreme water temperatures. Photo take July 18, 2023, by Lauren Toth, USGS.

A Saildrone Explorer in the harbor being towed out onto Lake Erie for the beginning of a mission to collect data to improve fishery surveys on July 14, 2023.