Images

The Needles district of Canyonlands serves as a stunning backdrop to our study site in the high desert grassland of the Colorado Plateau. Researchers at Canyonlands Research Station are testing the effect of experimentally imposed altered precipitation regimes on plant reproductive success, mortality, and biomass.

A single narrow trail leads to research plots monitored by scientists at Canyonlands Research Station since the 1990s. This pristine area of biological soil crusts has never been grazed.

Hilda Smith, biological technician with Canyonlands Research Station, monitors changes in biological soil crusts in response to experimental increases in temperature and altered precipitation patterns.

A variety of sampling methods are used to assess the movement of dust at different heights at Factory Butte. Dust samplers in the foreground are part of an ever-increasing network of more than 140 sites.

Silt fences were installed at paired locations on Mancos Shale to quantify sediment in runoff in disturbed and undisturbed areas.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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

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

Cattle graze on a ranch in western Montana.

Elk grazing at a feedground in Wyoming.

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

Blue Shiner, Cyprinella caerulea