Images

A heavily impacted off-road play area in Mancos Shale near the Book Cliffs is surveyed as a study site to assess dust production and quantify salinity and sediment in runoff.

Biological technicians, Beth Ogata, Kristina Young, and Natalie Day head back to base-camp after a day of monitoring vegetation and biological soil crusts in Canyonlands NP.

Ed Grote, biological technician with Canyonlands Research Station, sets up soil moisture monitoring system for an experiment to assess the effect of rainfall variability on BLM property near the Needles district of Canyonlands.

Dr. Jayne Belnap follows a narrow foot path through a diverse patch of biological soil crusts in an isolated area of Canyonlands NP that has never been exposed to grazing. Dr. Belnap has been studying biological soil crusts for more than 30 years.

To examine the influence of biological soil crusts in ecosystems (soil food webs, soil stability, soil nutrient cycles, and plant communities), Hilda Smith, biological technician, prepares to resample paired experimental plots where biological soil crusts were removed annually since 1995 or left intact at Arches NP.

A female Agassiz's desert tortoise at Joshua Tree National Park lounges in the entrance of her burrow, wearing a USGS radio.

Water flowing on the Colorado River near Moab, Utah. 

The entire Colorado River Basin currently supports 50 million people, and that amount is expected to increase by 23 million between 2000 and 2030. A new USGS study shows more than half of the streamflow in the Upper Colorado River Basin originates as groundwater. 

NPS/USGS remote den camera. Fisher family denning in a mountain beaver burrow. Look carefully! Two fisher kits in front of their den site in a mountain beaver burrow (foreground) with mom (background left) watching on. The kits are about 4-5 months old.

A USGS grizzly bear researcher snapped this picture of a mother grizzly bear and her cub in Yellowstone National Park. Adult females are the most important segment of the grizzly bear populations because they are the reproductive engine.

To adapt to rising sea levels, coastal wetlands can migrate landward at the expense of adjacent freshwater wetlands and upland ecosystems, but migration can be hindered by natural and anthropogenic barriers. This photo shows marsh migration into an upland forest in Maryland. 

Standing masonry buildings in Kathmandu suggest that shaking was not amplified in the valley sediments surrounding Kathmandu

Major damage was more likely to monuments in Kathmandu, Nepal than more modern structures

With great precision, an engraver carefully cuts away small ribbons of copper to create the contour plate for a USGS topographic map.

Elk grazing at a feedground in Wyoming.

Cattle graze on a ranch in western Montana.

Blue Shiner, Cyprinella caerulea

USGS responsds to recent flooding near Houston, Texas on April 20, 2016. 

Alaska Volcano Observatory scientist Mark Hansen working with Larsen Bay Mayor David Harmes on how the AVO-4 particulate monitor operates.

Murals on the USGS Western Fisheries Research Structure Pump House structure by Jeff Jacobson. 

Interpretive signage created by interpretive designer and illustrator Denise Dahn, with murals of USGS Western Fisheries Research Center Pump House created by Jeff Jacobson in background.

Murals on the USGS Western Fisheries Research Center Pump House structure by Jeff Jacobson.