Scientists Explore Alaska's Coast

This oblique aerial photograph is of Flaxman Island off the Alaska coast and shows a tapped thermokarst lakes, caribou tracks and ice-rich bluffs that are eroding. Coastal erosion along the Arctic coast is chronic, widespread and potentially accelerating, posing threats to infrastructure important for defense and energy purposes, natural shoreline habitats and nearby Native communities. To help address these concerns, the USGS is collecting information on past and present shoreline changes along the conterminous United States and parts of Alaska and Hawaii.