Images

USGS researchers Brome McCreary (orange vest) and Chris Pearl take measurements on Cascades frog at a mountain lake in Oregon.

Forest cover being removed for cattle pasturage and development. Smoke from bulldozed trees is visible in background with cattle in the foreground.

In 1929, as part of modest ceremonies to mark the USGS' 50^th anniversary, President Hoover invited Director George Otis Smith (who succeeded Walcott in 1907), and other USGS employees in the DC area to a reception at the White House. A professional photographer took a panoramic image of the attendees assembled in the Rose Garden.

A USGS scientist holds a five-year-old stocked lake sturgeon recaptured during a survival assessment in the Genesee River, New York.

Aerial view near Herat. Dark red iron stains hint that other minerals might be found.

A rare Yosemite bog-orchid (Platanthera yosemitensis) was identified as a new species in 2007.

Light-colored rocks in the foreground overlay a pluton, formed as a plume of magma rose, cooled and deposited minerals in the earth’s crust. Sedimentary rocks dip away from the intrusion.

In the past, each USGS topographic map typically required 3 individual lithographic stones for printing, one for each color shown on the map.

With great precision, an engraver carefully cuts away small ribbons of copper to create the contour plate for a US Geological Survey topographic quadrangle.

A photomicrograph depicting the siliceous tests of ten species of marine radiolarians. This image has been inverted to bring out details. Upon death, their tests can form siliceous marine sediments known as radiolarian ooze.

Photomicrograph depicting the siliceous frustules of fifty species of diatoms arranged within a circular shape. Diatoms form the base of many marine and aquatic food chains and upon death, their glassy frustules form sediments known as diatomaceous earth.

Deer in the mist by Lunch Lake in the Seven Lakes Basin of Olympic National Park.

An unknown hybrid species of salamander captured in Olympic National Park, Washington.

Forest cover being removed for cattle pasturage and development. Bulldozer and smoke from bulldozed trees in the background with cattle in the foreground.

Long-wave ultraviolet (UV) and white-light illumination of lesions associated with white-nose syndrome.  Points of orange–yellow fluorescence (arrows) detected on a roosting Indiana myotis (Myotis sodalis) following surface illumination with a field-portable 9-watt 368-nm fluorescent UV light (photo by Tina Cheng with permission).

Long-wave ultraviolet (UV) and white-light illumination of lesions associated with white-nose syndrome.  Wing from dead Tri-colored bat (Perimyotis subflavus) lit from above with hand-held 51 LED 385-nm UV flashlight shows points of orange–yellow fluorescence.  

Snakehead fish are originally from China and Korea, but recently they've been found in Maryland, Virginia, Arkansas, California, and Florida.

Seafloor image at a deepwater (~1400 m water depth) seep site on the New England margin. Seafloor conditions here are well inside the pressure-temperature stability field for methane hydrate. Gas being emitted below the rock overhang has formed gas hydrate (the white ice-like material). Distinct bubbles are visible in the foreground. The red laser scale is 10 cm.

USGS geologist Deborah Bergfeld measures the temperature of a thermal feature near Big Boiler at Bumpass Hell in Lassen Volcanic National Park.

USGS geologist Laura Clor (right) and Rachel Teasdale (California State University – Chico, left) collect gas samples from a thermal feature at Sulphur Works in Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Western view toward the Red Mountains near Silverton, Colorado, taken just upstream from the North Fork Cement Creek drainage in 2006. The photo illustrates acidic drainage (red drainage at right) and less acidic drainage (white drainage at left of photo) that originates from altered rocks and mines in the watershed.