Images

Epidote is a silicate mineral used mostly as a semiprecious gemstone.

Sample provided by Carlin Green, USGS. Sample originated from Prince of Wales Island, Alaska, and is 6.0cm in size.

This sample is of the mineral cerussite, once an important source of lead for paints and pigments. With the phasing out of lead-based paints, cerussite is now mostly valued as a collectors mineral.

Sample provided by Carlin Green, USGS. Sample originated from Mibladen, Morocco, and is 5.6cm in size.

Map showing sediment-hosted copper and porphyry copper deposits across the world.

Cannel coal is a type of bituminous coal, which is the second-highest rank of coal (just behind anthracite). This particular sample has a high carbon content with high pollen and spore content as well. Unlike most bituminous coal, Cannel coal can be carved into ornaments. This sample came from the Eastern Interior Coalfield in Kentucky.

Granite is an igneous rock that we’ve used for building materials for thousands of years. It’s name comes from the Latin word “granum,” meaning “grain,” which refers to the grains of quartz and feldspar that define granite. This one is from the Barre formation in Vermont.

Phosphorite rock formed on the seafloor in Southern California.

USGS scientist Sarah Hawkins, lead scientist for the Mancos Shale assessment, examining a core drilled by the USGS Core Research Center. This core provided valuable data for the assessment. Image credit: Joshua Hicks, USGS.

The USGS Core Research Center collaborated with the USGS Energy Resources Program to drill a core from the Mancos Shale to aid in the oil and gas assessment. Image Credit: Joshua Hicks, USGS.

Coal project personnel visiting Trapper Mine in northwest Colorado in June, 2016.

Layered deposit of unconsolidated heavy mineral sands along the shores of Folly Beach, South Carolina.

Intensely altered propylitic rocks (red and yellow) in the Red Mountain mining district, overprinting the regional, propylitically altered igneous rocks (grayish-green), peaks at top of image. View to west.

Geologist doing field work in Alaska

Sample of eudialyte (pink) within layered vein consisting of quartz, albite, and sodic amphibole, Dora Bay, Alaska. Size of sample is 11 by 9 cm. Sample of coarse-grained, tabular bastnäsite within matrix of ferruginous dolomite, Birthday Claim, Mountain Pass, California. Photographs by Philip Verplanck, U.S. Geological Survey. SIR 2010-5070-J

from usgs files

Numerous distinct methane streams emanating from the seafloor at an upper slope (< 500 m water depth) cold seep site offshore Virginia. Image courtesy of NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program, 2013 Northeast U.S. Canyons Expedition.

Panoramic photo of Silverton, Colorado, with Sultan Mountain in the distance.  Silverton is the town most directly affected by the Gold King mine blowout. 

A test-well for collecting gas hydrates in 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.

A typical drill pad in the Marcellus Shale gas play of southwestern Pennsylvania.

Steel pipe used in a well in the Marcellus Shale gas play of southwestern Pennsylvania.

Equipment set up to pump water from a lake to an impoundment for hydraulic fracturing in the Fayetteville Shale of Arkansas.

A drill rig at a well site in the Marcellus Shale gas play of southwestern Pennsylvania.