Images

Map showing the locations of all U.S. volcanoes with their threat category designated by color. Very high threat is red, high is orange, moderate is yellow, low is green, and very low is blue. 

These two NOAA satellite images show Cape San Blas Road in the Florida Panhandle town of Cape San Blas before Hurricane Michael, and after the Category 5 storm. The red circle shows where the USGS sea turtle researchers' field station and seasonal home once stood. The building was demolished down to the concrete slab.

Chaparral in the foreground of the El Escorpión Park in Southern California after the November 2018 Woolsey fire. Photo taken in December 2018. 

HVO geologist Matthew Patrick being interviewed on the Kīlauea lava-flow field for a documentary about Hawaiian volcanism. Growing lava delta (left background) steaming at the point of ocean entry.

USGS scientists collect sediment cores to examine the amount and distribution of metals within Lake Powell.  

Drill rig to collect sediment samples on Lake Powell.

USGS scientists work with heavy machinery to collect sediment through the full thickness of the San Juan and Colorado River deltas. 

Core processing hut provides a sheltered environment for scientists to process the cores for shipment to the National Lacustrine Core Facility

USGS scientists collect sediment cores to examine the amount and distribution of metals within Lake Powell.  

USGS Mollusk Fossils in the Denver Collection.

A broken concrete foundation and some shattered floor tiles were all that remained of the sea turtle researchers' field station and home base after Category Four Hurricane Michael struck Cape San Blas on Oct. 10, 2018.

Burned, hollowed out base of a sequoia tree in Sequoia National Park

USGS Research Oceanographer Lauren Toth and Oceanographer Anastasios Stathakopoulos study a coral-reef core in the USGS’s Core Archive in St. Petersburg, Florida. Photo: Dominique Gallery, USGS.

A deeply eroded sand dune on the beach at Cape San Blas shows Hurricane Michael's impact on parts of the Florida Panhandle shoreline.

A beach house in Cape San Blas, Florida destroyed by Hurricane Michael, which struck the Florida Panhandle as a Category Four storm Oct. 10, 2018.

Each one these blue dots represents a site where a storm-tide sensor bracket has been installed for the Gulf of Mexico pre-defined network. There are currently 85 brackets in Florida, 6 in Alabama, 3 in Mississippi, 18 in Louisiana and 26 in Texas, for a total of 138 bracketed sites. (Not all brackets will be used in all storms.)

The sun rises at Mount St. Helens (pictured in the distance), with low-level clouds covering Coldwater Lake. The view is from the Coldwater Science and Learning Center, the site of the 2018 GeoGirls field camp program.

The USGS creates a Flood Event Viewer for major flooding incidents, as a one-stop, interactive information source. On that website, viewers can click on each red dot (storm-tide sensor) to see details about it.

Coastal Change Storm Hazard Team map created Tuesday, 10/89/18 showing current forecasted beach erosion, overwash and inundation effects of Hurricane Michael's predicted landfall in the Florida Panhandle. Forecast will change with subsequent National Hurricane Center forecasts.

For ten years, this yellow concrete block house in Cape San Blas, Florida, dubbed Fish Inn, was the seasonal office, laboratory and living quarters for a team of USGS sea turtle researchers during their field season from November till April.

Brett Johnston, USGS hydrographer, enters storm-tide sensor information into a USGS data management system on October 8 near Fish Creek, Florida. USGS Photo by Brett Johnston.