Images

USGS scientist Art Bookstrom maps and samples a gossan, developed on tightly folded, mineralized, metamorphosed, and weathered banded siltite, exposed on the southwest rim of the Blacktail pit of the Blackbird cobalt-copper mine, in the Salmon River Mountains of east-central Idaho. The gossan is overlain by unconsolidated colluvial debris.

USGS scientist Steve Box takes an oriented sample of folded, crenulated, and metamorphosed banded siltite, exposed in the Blacktail pit of the Blackbird cobalt-copper mine, in the Salmon River Mountains of east-central Idaho.

A member of the USGS Glen Canyon Adaptive Management Working Group in Flagstaff, Ariz., monitors the Colorado River downstream of Glen Canyon Dam.

Washington Monument in DC, with the cherry blossoms in bloom.

An oblique LIDAR image of La Conchita, Calif., reveals the community’s grim landslide history. The 1995 landslide is outlined in blue and the 2005 landslide in yellow, while a red line overhead outlines the main scarp of an ancient landslide that involved the entire bluff. Arrows show other landslides in the area.

This image is a High Resolution Orthoimagery, 6-inch spatial resolution, Lancaster County Dataset, taken in April 2007. High Resolution Orthoimagery looks like a photograph but any distortions caused by the tilt of the camera or topography of the land have been removed, so orthoimages are geospatially accurate and can be used as maps.

A flare stack to burn excess natural gas at a natural gas drill site in the Marcellus Shale gas play of western Pennsylvania.

A drill rig in the Bakken oil field in Stark County, western North Dakota. 

Elk traveling on winter range in the northwestern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem after crossing the Madison River near Ennis, Montana, 2008.

Elk traveling across winter range in the northwestern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem near the Gardiner River in Yellowstone National Park, 2008.

A photo taken before the Great Works Dam was removed (likely in 2009), looking upstream from a boat just upstream of the Great Works Dam.

Researchers with IGBST have tranquilized the bear and prepare to lift it out of the trap and onto the tarp for data collection. Once on the tarp the bear is easier to move.

The kerchief over the bear's eyes protects it from dust and debris and reduces visual stimulation. The small tubing in its nose, known as a nasal cannula, delivers oxygen to the animal while it is tranquilized.

This USGS file photo was taken at a USGS gaging station on the Passadumkeag River at Lowell, Maine (01035000) in 1915. The USGS collected streamflow at this location from 1915 through 1979. The photo shows an unknown hydrographer standing next to a chain gage. The chain gage was used by a local observer to make manual readings of water level. 

USGS researcher Craig Allen stands on the edge of Mesa Alta, amid diverse forest and woodland in the uplands of northern New Mexico; note some recently dead ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir in the field of view. Forest drought stress is strongly correlated with tree mortality from poor growth, bark beetle outbreaks, and high-severity fire.

Whitish areas on this diseased sunflower sea star (Pycnopodia helianthoides) are lesions that result in detachment of arms from the central disc.

Hoffstadt Creek is one of the salmon release sights after being radio tagged. This picture is taken just downstream from the release sight after a fish release.

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.

Photomicrograph depicting the siliceous frustulesof 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.

The grey, coiled seashell of Olivella semistriata with the aperture (shell opening) facing up. Photograph taken 2002 or earlier.

A pair of Caracolus sagemon.