Images

The beginning of the Fourmile Canyon fire, which burned about 6,000 acres in Boulder County, Colorado, in September 2010. Storms after wildfire led to downstream water-quality impairment.

Photo taken from Bear Peak, near Boulder, CO.

Mount St. Helens, as viewed from Coldwater Ridge around sunset.

National Park Service employee inspects a Plate Boundary Observatory strainmeter/seismometer station.

Beacon Rock (Washington), Boring Volcanic Field, is the central core of a cinder cone that remained intact after its carapace was stripped away by the Missoula Floods about 15,000 years ago.

John Byrnes of the USGS office in Troy, NY collecting a Hurricane Irene sample at the Mohawk River at Cohoes on August 29, 2010. As Hurricane Irene left her mark along the East Coast, USGS crews sampled water for pesticides, E. coli, nutrients, and sediment to document water quality in areas affected by the hurricane.

Drought- and bark-beetle–induced mortality in high-elevation whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) forests, northern Warner Mountains (Drake Peak), Oregon.

The Barrow magnetic observatory. New combo building is on the left. Old absolutes building in the center.

The Golden Geomagnetic crew in Barrow, Alaska.

In 2010, USGS researcher Brian Edwards recovers white chunks of gas hydrate (methane ice) mixed with gray sediment from a metal core sample tube retrieved from the seafloor in the Arctic Ocean at a water depth of approximately 8,000 feet.

Ken Honma, shown here in August 1973, repaired stations and replaced batteries at remote seismic stations to keep the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory seismic network running smoothly.

Ken Honma, an electronics technician with the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory for almost 40 years, retired from the U.S. Geological Survey on July 31, 2010.

Scientists at the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center study coral reef ecosystems. This coral, Orbicella annularis, was photographed in the Florida Keys during field work on coral disease. 

Instrument piers at Deadhorse geomagnetic observatory.

Both buildings at Deadhorse geomagnetic observatory.

GOES antenna at Deadhorse geomagnetic observatory.

Main building at Deadhorse geomagnetic observatory.

Main building at Deadhorse geomagnetic observatory in summer.

Fluxgate sensor at Deadhorse geomagnetic observatory.

Main building at Deadhorse geomagnetic observatory.

Absolutes pier at Deadhorse geomagnetic observatory.

Large patches of Cladophora, a green algae, lining the shore of Lake Michigan. Accumulation of Cladophora in shoreline waters is believed to be linked to avian botulism outbreaks, which have recently increased in the Great Lakes.