Images

In this shaded relief and bathymetric map of O‘ahu, which comprises two volcanoes (WAIANAE and Ko‘olau), colors indicate water depth, from shallow (orange and yellow) to deep (purple), with shades of gray indicating the island area above sea level. From: U.S.

USGS scientist Tammy Caudle demonstrates the acoustic dopplar current profiler onboard that will be used to measure streamflow on the Mississippi River.

Image shows a night-time view of the Natchez-Vidalia Bridge at Natchez, Mississippi.

This is the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, Mississippi, as the crest from the earlier flooding moves through.

This satellite image was captured on Sunday, January 10, by the Advanced Land Imager instrument onboard NASA's Earth Observing 1 satellite. The image is provided courtesy of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Although this is a false-color image, the color map has been chosen to mimic what the human eye would expect to see.

Mississippi River water flows through the Bonnet Carré Spillway into the channel, where it will flow to Lake Pontchartrain.

A panorama of the floodwaters at the Bonnet Carré Spillway. In preparation for the river crests due next week, USGS is out sampling on the Bonnet Carre Spillway, one of two spillways on the Mississippi River operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Flooded land within the Bonnet Carré Spillway. Normally, this land is dry, but when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decides to release Mississippi River water from the Bonnet Carré Spillway, this land will be submerged.

Though the park celebrates its 100th anniversary on August 1, 2016, its main attractions-Kilauea and Mauna Loa volcanoes-have been adding to the land mass of Hawaii’s “Big Island” for at least 400,000 years.

Zoomed-in view of the spattering at the southeast corner of the lava lake. The vent wall is overhung in this area.

Preview image for video: A rockfall on the east rim of the summit vent within Kīlauea Volcano's Halema‘uma‘u Crater triggered a small explosive event at 3:51 a.m., HST, on January 8, 2016. Explosive events like this occur more frequently when the lava lake level is relatively high, as it has been this past week—around 30-35 m (100-115 ft) below the vent rim.

The rim of Halema‘uma‘u Crater was covered in a nearly continuous blanket of tephra following today's early morning rockfall and subsequent explosive event. Tephra is the general term for volcanic rock fragments exploded or carried into the air during an eruption, and can range from dust-size particles to fragments more than 1 m (3.2 ft) in diameter.

Preview image for video: When large rockfalls impact the lava lake, they trigger explosive events that propel volcanic rock fragments (tephra) upward. This morning's event was vigorous enough to hurl incandescent fragments onto the rim of Halema‘uma‘u Crater, about 110 m (360 ft) above the lava lake surface.

The January 8, 2016, rockfall and subsequent explosive event littered the rim of Halema‘uma‘u Crater with fragments of molten lava. In this image, you can see what remains of the Halema‘uma‘u Overlook wooden fence, which has been repeatedly been bombarded by spatter and rock fragments since 2008.

The 10 cm (4-inch) pocket knife in this image provides scale for one of the larger fragments of molten lava that was thrown onto the rim of Halema‘uma‘u Crater at 3:51 a.m., HST, on January 8, 2016. So much spatter was ejected to the crater rim this morning that it is hard to discern one lava fragment from another.

This satellite image was captured on Thursday, January 7, by the Advanced Land Imager instrument onboard NASA's Earth Observing 1 satellite. The image is provided courtesy of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Although this is a false-color image, the color map has been chosen to mimic what the human eye would expect to see.

In recent days, the lava lake in Halema‘uma‘u Crater has been at a relatively high level. This view, looking roughly north-northeast, shows typical behavior, with lava rising into the lake at the distant end opposite the photographer, and sinking all along the base of the crater wall in the foreground and at right.

The coastal bluff along East Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz, California are especially vulnerable to rising sea level during big storms. Sometimes even the rip-rap, put in place to protect roadways and homes, cannot protect the bluffs from erosion.

This small-scale map shows Kīlauea's active East Rift Zone lava flow in relation to the eastern part of the Island of Hawai‘i. The area of the flow field on December 3 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the flow field as mapped on January 5 is shown in red. The yellow lines show the active lava tube system.

Waves flood across a coastal road near Santa Cruz, California.

This map shows recent changes to Kīlauea's active East Rift Zone lava flow field. The area of the flow field on December 3 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the flow field as mapped on January 5 is shown in red. The yellow lines show the active lava tube system. Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō lava flows erupted prior to June 27, 2014, are shown in gray.