Images

The Snow to Flow team is comprised of a “village” of remarkable scientists and engineers from the USGS Colorado Water Science Center, USGS National Uncrewed Systems Office (NUSO), and the University of Southern California - Viterbi School of Engineering. The team is pictured here at the Berthoud Pass, CO field site on April 18, 2022.

USGS Biologist Amanda Milde holds a 79 lb bighead carp captured, tagged, and released in Pool 18 of the Mississippi.

Headshot of Weston Weber. Weston is a Public Affairs Specialist with the Eastern States Office of Communications. 

Geologists in the field at Pennington Mountain. The orange instrument is a portable gamma spectrometer. University of Maine-Presque Isle professor Chunzeng Wang (the lead author) is in front, Preston Bass is carrying the meter.

A super streamgage sits inside the brown structure underneath the bridge over the Wabash River linking Indiana and Illinois. The closest town is New Harmony, IN. 

Open pit rare earth element mine at Mountain Pass, California. Stepped sides of the pit and access for mining vehicles are shown.

A helicopter rigged with an airborne geophysical survey collecting equipment. Information collected during these surveys can help with studying critical mineral resources, natural hazards and groundwater potential. A cow is here too.

A low-flying helicopter towing a geophysical device collects scientific data on groundwater and geology. Information collected during these surveys can help with studying critical mineral resources, natural hazards and groundwater potential.

Screenshot of the USGS Flood Inundation Mapper shows the Lake Ontario shoreline at Braddock Heights. USGS image. 

COLORS OF THE CARBON RAINBOW

Not All Carbon is the Same

Scientists use color to classify carbon at different points in the carbon cycle based on carbon function, characteristics, and location. This creates a more descriptive framework than traditional "organic" and "inorganic" labels.

Climate change interacts with droughts in many ways. Some regions are experiencing warmer, drier conditions than they have in the past, leading to less rainfall (meteorological drought) or snowpack (snow drought). Over time, this can cause water sources like lakes, streams, and underground aquifers to dry up (hydrological drought).

topoBuilder & OnDemand Topo Capabilities

A topographic map of Horseshoe Bend, part of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, made with topoBuilder.

A comparison of low, medium (default), and high contour smoothing options available from the topoBuilder application.

A topographic map of Horseshoe Bend, part of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, made with topoBuilder. Custom topographic maps like this one can be made using topoBuilder.

topoBuilder & OnDemand Topo Capabilities 

USGS map showing the movement of a lesser scaup infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza (red line) compared to four lesser scaup not infected (maroon, yellow, blue and black lines). Movement was recorded January 23 to 26, 2022. The black dot identifies where the birds were captured and released in Maryland.

USGS scientist Jeff Pigati collects pollen for radiocarbon dating at the site where human footprints were found in order to estimate the age of the footprints. Pollen also provides a picture of what kind of vegetation existed at the time that the footprints were made.

Cartoon GIF cross-section of river sediments filling the bottom of Lake Powell from pre-Glen Canyon dam to today.

(Left) This Flood and Storm Tracker map shows areas where flooding caused by Hurricane Ida in 2021 may have spread the invasive northern snakehead. (Right) The northern snakehead is just one of almost 1,400 nonindigenous aquatic species the USGS can estimate the spread of after major flood events with these maps. USGS images.

A photo of a prairie pothole wetland. The Prairie Pothole Region is the largest wetland complex in North America.