Images

USGS technician Pete Dal Ferro prepares a generator-injector seismic source aboard the research ship Pelican during a cruise to study gas hydrates in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico in April and May 2013.

Following the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake, the USGS has been helping with earthquake awareness and monitoring in the country, with continued support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

As schools close for the year and summer weather beckons, many recreationalists head to the Great Lakes' public beaches. However, these coastal areas can become contaminated with disease-causing bacteria that threaten public health, disrupt water recreation, and pay a toll on the Great Lakes economies that depend on summer tourism.

NPS citizen scientist Eleanor Comings counts loon carcasses at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore during a large botulism outbreak in October of 2012.

A screenshot from the USGS film "Living with Fire".

USGS Western Ecological Research Center ecologist Carlton Rochester handles a rattlesnake in San Diego County, Calif.

A screenshot from the USGS film "Living with Fire".

A fire tornado swirls near a home in southern California. USGS is investigating the factors that dictate home loss from wildfires as part of the USGS Southern California Wildfire Risk Scenario Project.

Image courtesy of Tim Walton, Photo One Productions, CALFIRE. Shared with permission.

Birds found in and around the Salton Sea, California.

Six Mile Falls on Kenduskeag Stream at USGS station 01037000.

USGS hydrologist Martha Nielsen examines cuttings as a drill crew works to drill a new monitoring well at USGS station 443647070552303 (ME-OW400A) near Middle Dam on Lower Richardson Lake. The existing well heaved due to frost and had to be replaced.

A family of Florida panthers walking in the night.

Damage to a village house. Longxingcun.

Miradiscops opal shell viewed with a scanning electron microscope.

Thysanophora caecoides shell viewed with a scanning electron microscope.

Spiraxis sp. shell viewed with a scanning electron microscope with aperture facing up.

A tidal marsh bank exposed during low tide on Sitkinak Island, Alaska. The bank reveals ledges of alternating peat and silt. Abrupt uplift and subsidence during large megathrust earthquakes is interpreted to be the cause of the alternating layers.

Base camp, Sitkinak Island.

Geologists examine cores on Sitkinak Island, Alaska.

Geologists examine an exposure of a tidal marsh bank on Sitkinak Island, Alaska. The bank exposes interbedded peat and silt that records sudden vertical land movements associated with megathrust fault slip during large earthquakes.

Adult, immature, and nymph stage box elder bugs gather on the leaves of a hosta plant growing at the base of a silver maple tree. Adults have fully formed, mainly black wings.

Adult, immature, and nymph stage box elder bugs gather on the leaves of a hosta plant growing at the base of a silver maple tree. Adults have fully formed, mainly black wings.

A complete shell of a horseshoe crab lies in the tidal line on a beach among dried seaweeds.