Images

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.

This camera station is located on a hill within the newly established Saguaro National Monument near Tucson. The view is northeast toward Agua Caliente Hill and looks down a gentle incline that drains into Tanque Verde Creek. The saguaro stand pictured here is a particularly memorable one because of the many large individuals and absence of small ones.

Young boys working in a newly cropped field in Africa.

This adolescent chick, hatched and raised at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, is one of ten whooping cranes being released in Louisiana in February 2011. It is a milestone for the state and for the birds, which have not lived in the state since the 1950s.

The U.S.

A copper-striped blue-tailed skink (Emoia impar) photographed in Samoa during a USGS field survey.

Some Polar bears in the Arctic can swim in excess of 200 miles.

This landslide occurred at La Conchita, California in 2005. Ten people were killed.

A frosty day in North Dakota near the Hear River above Lake Tschida, near Glen Ullin, streamgage.

A drill rig in the Fayetteville Shale gas play of Arkansas.

A sample of gas hydrates collected from Mallik, Canada. Gas hydrates are naturally-occurring “ice-like” combinations of natural gas and water that have the potential to provide an immense resource of natural gas from the world’s oceans and polar regions.

Herring larvae 53 day post-hatch. Black pigmentation is evident.

Naturally-deposited herring eggs attached to submerged macrophytes. Coiled embryos are evident inside the eggs.

Small herring spawning event in Puget Sound, evidenced by the presence of 'white water', caused by mass release of spawning products into the water.

During laboratory tests, USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center scientists and partners found that the heart and growth rates of some species of young freshwater mussels declined as a result of elevated water temperatures, and many died.