Images

California's hotter drought has already killed millions of trees, particularly in low-elevation forests.

USGS biologists assess the health of a sugar pine, one of tens of  thousands of individual trees whose fates have been tracked annually throughout the drought in California.

USGS researcher Rebecca Lazarus prepares to take a blood sample from an osprey fledgling in a nest on the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, Delaware Bay in 2015. Lazarus and colleagues did similar sampling of 48 chicks on Chesapeake Bay in 2011-2013.

Pedernales River at Hamilton Pool Crossing after September 1952 flood. Trees destroyed by flood of September 11, 1952.  Discharge of Pedernales River near Spicewood, TX (USGS station 08154000) was 452,000 cfs.

Photo showing the kite that is suspending the camera over the San Andreas Fault.

Full view of the ground with the San Andreas fault running through the middle of the image. A 30 foot steam offset from the 1857 earthquake can be seen near the right edge of the image.

Artist D.V. Rogers stomps on one of the geophones surrounding the shake table to trigger it.

3-minute exposure of Parkfield Cafe (and shake table) entrance at night.

Arizona saquaro will be one of the species looked at by USA-NPN volunteers.

California poppies.

Steve Nagel collects data from a weather station in the Shenandoah National Park.

Little blue herons are a species recorded in the historical bird phenology cards.

In an unearthly series of events, the USGS has created man-made moon dirt, or regolith, to help NASA prepare for upcoming moon explorations. Four tons of the simulant is expected to be made by this summer of 2009 and turned over to the scientific community involved in lunar exploration.

Rocks are collected from the Stillwater Mine in Nye, Montana to be used for making lunar regolith simulant.
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The plasma torch melter in Boulder, Colorado exists nowhere else in the world. The mixed and ground rock on the left in a 1-ton bag is fed into the melter to be made into glass.
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When firing, the Zybek melter plasma torches must be viewed wearing long sleeves and a welding mask to avoid potential burns from the 37,000 degree Fahrenheit blaze.
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While the susceptibility of endangered akiapolaau honeycreepers to avian malaria is unknown, it is likely very high given their current restriction to the highest elevation forests on the island of Hawaii.

Students Anaga Nmagu and Danielle Travers, hired with ARRA funds, are converting more than one million hand-written bird band recovery records into digital format at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.

This is a first aid kit used in fieldwork in the west. The kit is likely an army surplus item. The kit includes first aid materials for snake bites as well as more common ailments.
Object ID: USGS-000057

The kit contains over 600 pieces and was used at the Bird Banding Laboratory at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Maryland.
Object ID: USGS-000219

This instrument was manufactured by Spencer, Browning & Rust, London. A sextant is used for measuring the altitude of the sun or another celestial body; such measurements can then be used to determine the observer's geographical position or for other navigational, surveying, or astronomical applications.