Images

These clams (Calyptogena spp.) were discovered in about 1000 meter-deep waters off the southern tip of Alaska near a 250-meter-high cone rising from the seafloor and 10 kilometers from the Queen Charlotte-Fairweather fault.

Seafloor trace of the Queen Charlotte-Fairweather fault (from top left to bottom right) offsets the edge of the Yakobi Sea Valley off southeast Alaska. This 700-mile-long fault has generated large earthquakes in the past. Future shocks—and tsunamis—could threaten coastal communities in the U.S. and Canada. (Color-coded depths, in meters, were mapped in 2015.)

Sandy Brosnahan transporting a weather buoy into the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center’s operational facility in preparation for deployment. This buoy was one of 6 deployed to measure wind speed, direction, pressure, and temperature off the coast of Fire Island, NY.

Tsunami evacuation route sign at an intersection in Nehalem, Oregon.

Bathymetry and backscatter intensity of the sea floor of the Hudson Shelf Valley location map

 Scanning electron microscope image of gas hydrate crystals in a sediment sample. The scale is 50 micrometers (µm) or approximately 0.002 inches

Storm induced erosion of marsh shorelines can provide significant quantities of sediment to the bay altering the deposition patterns.

Measuring seagrass biomass in Chincoteague Bay, Maryland to constrain numerical models.

Flood tidal shoal at Barnegat Inlet, New Jersey (courtesy USGS EROS NAIP orthophotography)

Box-cores provide a relatively undistributed look into the recent past to help better understand the processes contributing to sediment deposition and erosion.

Flood maps from Our Coast, Our Future showing Stinson Beach today (slide 1); with a 50-centimeter sea-level rise (slide 2); and when an annual storm strikes in addition to 50-centimeter sea-level rise (slide 3). Green patches are low-lying areas prone to flooding.

Near vertical (top, middle) and low angle oblique (bottom) aerial photographs of Rodanthe, North Carolina. View looking west along the North Carolina shore. High waves and storm surge from Hurricane Joaquin eroded the beach, exposing the pilings of the homes to wave attack (green and orange arrows).

Near vertical (top, middle) and low angle oblique (bottom) aerial photographs of Salvo, North Carolina. View looking west along the North Carolina shore. Waves and surge from Hurricane Joaquin eroded the beach, causing significant shoreline retreat and a narrower beach, leaving deposits of darker sand at the base of the dune (green arrow).

Conceptual diagram showing the structure of the Bayesian network used to assess potential sea-level rise impacts on the coastal landscape.

Problem statement, objectives, and alternative actions defined by Department of Interior  collaborators using structured decision making framework

Yellowstone subsurface cross-section schematic oriented SW-NE, depicts rise of magma beneath mantle plus heating and movement of mantle and crustal material. Credit Univ Utah. Click to enlarge.

The November 25, 2015, breakout that began as a rupture from the tube supplying the June 27th lava flow advanced slowly to the northeast of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō (background) and reached the forest in mid-December, but still poses no immediate threat to Puna communities. USGS image.

Illustration of the NIMBBLE (New instrument for making bottom boundary layer evaluations). The NIMBBLE is a low-profile platform with two acoustic Doppler velocimeters and an upward-looking acoustic Doppler profilers.

USGS staff and the ship's crew of the R/V Sharp prepare to deploy a deep-water multibeam echosounder during a mapping program in the mid-Atlantic in 2015.

Science crew aboard R/V Marcus G. Langseth. Ray Sliter (Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center) and Deb Hutchison (Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center) shown at far left.

Photo showing the complex geomorphology of the marsh landscape of the Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge/Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in coastal Alabama and Mississippi. (1) Geology—a tidal creek that at lower sea level than present served as a distributary channel of a river-delta system. (2) Hydrodynamics—wave erosion of the marsh edge.