Images

Mount Elbert gas hydrate stratigraphic test well on the North Slope of Alaska.

This image shows gas hydrates (the white material) in marine sediments from a test well drilled in the Indian Ocean in 2006 during the Indian National Gas Hydrate Program (NGHP) Expedition 01.

This image shows gas hydrates (the white material) in marine sediments from a test well drilled in the Indian Ocean in 2006 during the Indian National Gas Hydrate Program (NGHP) Expedition 01.

This image shows gas hydrates (the white material) in marine sediments from a test well drilled in the Indian Ocean in 2006 during the Indian National Gas Hydrate Program (NGHP) Expedition 01.

This image shows gas hydrates (the white material) in marine sediments from a test well drilled in the Indian Ocean in 2006 during the Indian National Gas Hydrate Program (NGHP) Expedition 01.

These rare-earth oxides are used as tracers to determine which parts of a watershed are eroding. Clockwise from top center: praseodymium, cerium, lanthanum, neodymium, samarium, and gadolinium. Image Number D1115-1. Photo by Peggy Greb, USDA-ARS.

An open-pit mine for volcanic-hosted copper deposits from the Bolnisi District of the Republic of Georgia.

An open-pit mine for volcanic-hosted copper deposits from the Bolnisi District of the Republic of Georgia. A controlled blast as part of the mining process can be seen.

USGS scientist Bernard Hubbard conducting spectral measurements of soils and cover crops to ground truth satellite imagery being used to map soil erosion and runoff potential into the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

USGS scientist measuring pH, Specific Conductance and dissolved oxygen in a remediation ditch constructed with local volcanic rock possessing some acid neutralizing capacity.  

Brown's Gulch is below the Brooklyn Mine, a few miles north of Siverton, Colorado, in the Mineral Creek basin.

During Ocean Drilling Program Leg 204, nine sites were cored and wireline logged on the Oregon continental margin to determine the distribution and concentration of gas hydrates in an accretionary ridge setting, investigate the mechanisms that transport methane and other gases into the gas hydrate stability zone, and obtain constraints on physical properties of

This image shows an inukshuk, a stone cairn used by indigenous peoples in northern latitudes, particularly in places like northern Canada. 

A drill rig at the Mallik test site in Canada's Mckenzie Delta.  USGS joined the Geological Survey of Canada, JAPEX, and the Japanese National Oil Company to drill test wells for natural gas production from gas hydrate deposits.

View from a distance of the power plant cooling tower on the edge of Lake Michigan.

Erika Lentz examines Pennsylvanian coal samples in West Virginia.

 An abandoned mine shaft taken in the Mojave Basin and Range Ecoregion (NV) in August 2002.

Gas hydrate recovered in shallow layers just below the seafloor during piston coring in the Mississippi Canyon in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

For more information, contact USGS civil engineer Bill Winters at: bwinters@usgs.gov

Silhouette of a solitary windmill against a reddened and cloudy sky.

View southward from Fortress Mountain Formation on Atigun syncline towards Brooks Range.  Trans-Alaska Pipeline, haul road, and Galbraith Lake in valley.  Location in Brooks Range foothills, about 90 miles southeast of Umiat.

A bed of manganese nodules from deep offshore of the Cook Islands; photo sourced from Hein et al., 2015, taken during a Japanese research cruise in the year 2000. Nodules range from about 2 to 10 centimeters across.

Cover page for the USGS Open File Report 99-349. Read the original report here: https://www.usgs.gov/publications/mapping-glacial-geology-central-great…