Images

A methane seep in shallow Lake Qalluuraq on the Alaskan North Slope near the Native Village of Atqasuk breaks the water's surface during 2009 geophysical surveys

Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St. Laurent alongside U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy in the Arctic Ocean. The United States and Canada are mapping the Arctic seafloor and gathering data to help define the outer limits of the continental shelf in this region. 

This image displays expected overwash probabilities at Cape Canaveral given a typical nor’easter storm striking the coast.

 U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy breaks ice ahead of the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St-Laurent on September 1, 2009. The two ships were part of a multi-year, multi-agency Arctic survey that will help define the North American continental shelf.

The USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, located in Santa Cruz, California, owns and operates the research vessel R/V Parke Snavely to collect data and run surveys.

A sub-bottom profile of CHIRP seismic data is draped over swath bathymetry showing the Gulf of Maine pockmark field stratigraphy common to the area. Seafloor mapping combined with sub-bottom geologic profiles shows that Holocene mud ranges in thickness between 5 and 10 meters but pockmarks in Belfast Bay do not penetrate below the geologic unconformity. Th

Aluminum roofs and debris transported behind the village of Tula on the east shore of American Samoa following the Tsunami that hit the island on Sept. 29, 2009. The tsunami runup was 16-26 feet in Tula.

Tsunami sand deposit at Alao, American Samoa following the tsunami on Sept. 29, 2009. Light colored sand deposited during the tsunami overlies darker soil that was there before the tsunami.

Tsunami flow depth at Alofau, American Samoa following the tsunami that hit the island on Sept. 29, 2009.

Tsunami flow depth indicator at Fagasa, American Samoa following the tsunami that hit the island on Sept. 29, 2009. Vegetation is brown where it was submerged by the tsunami and green above.

Car thrown into building in Pago Pago, American Samoa during the tsunami that struck the island on Sept. 29, 2009.

Boat thrown onto fish pond in Maloata, American Samoa following the tsunami that hit the island on Sept. 29, 2009.

Marie Chan Kau, a staff member at American Samoa Community College and a member of the International Tsunami Survey Team, points to the maximum water level reached by the tsunami that struck American Samoa on Sept. 29, 2009. This spot, found in Fagasa, American Samoa, is about about 10 meters above sea level.

USGS oceanographer Bruce Jaffe standing next to a boat thrown ashore in Pago Pago, American Samoa by the tsunami that hit the island on Sept. 29, 2009.

Cars damaged by the tsunami in Fagasa, American Samoa. The tsunami hit the island on Sept. 29, 2009.

The water from the tsunami that hit American Samoa on September 29, 2009 was strong enough to destroy homes and move large objects, such as the boulder pictured here.

Only the foundation of a house in Fagasa, American Samoa remains after the tsunami hit on Sept. 29, 2009.

Roof moved into the ocean in Fagasa, American Samoa following the tsunami that hit the island on Sept. 29, 2009.

Sediment inundated a building in Pago Pago, American Samoa as a result of a Tsunami that struck the coast on Sept. 29, 2009.

The Native communities’ in-ground food storage facilities are being lost as a result of eroding bluffs and thawing permafrost.