Images

A view looking north on Cocoa beach towards Kennedy Space Station. Coastal infrastructure and natural resources such as sediment and beach vegetation can all be affected by coastal change processes.

Strong storms such as hurricanes can cause drastic changes to coastal environments. For example, this large washover fan was created on Fire Island, New York in 2012 after Hurricane Sandy by waves moving sediment from the dunes and beach towards the back-barrier environment. 

Safety is a top priority. USGS staff recently improved access to field sites at the Herring River estuary within the Cape Cod National Seashore to provide safer paths through a phragmites wetland.

Tina Neal, HVO Scientist-in-Charge from 2015–2020 ends her tenure on June 19, 2020. USGS photo.

During today's overflight of Kīlauea summit, both thermal and visual cameras were used to characterize activity. Comparing thermal (left) to visual (right) images of nearly the same view, you can see that the growing crater lake at Kīlauea's summit remains hot.

Steep walls, collapsed blocks, and rubble border Halema‘uma‘u Crater and Kīlauea's growing summit crater lake. In this photo, looking northwest, the summits of both Kīlauea (foreground) and Mauna Loa (background) are visible. USGS photos by K. Mulliken

Instruments continue to collect vital data during workplace closures. Here staff perform maintenance on an eddy flux tower located within a phragmites wetland at the Cape Cod National Seashore. The instruments on this tower measure methane and CO2 fluxes related to plant and soil processes day in and day out for the entire year.

Barry Arm of Harriman Fjord, Prince William Sound, Alaska. Included is Barry Glacier and Cascade Glacier.

HVO scientist measures the episode 12 lava fountain height at Mauna Ulu from Pu‘u Huluhulu on Dec 30, 1969. The Mauna Ulu eruption marks its 51st anniversary on May 24, 1969. Photo by Hans-Ulrich Schmincke.

Map of the portion of the southwest coast of Puerto Rico affected by an earthquake sequence that began in December 2019, along with portions of the seafloor where faults involved in the earthquake sequence were suspected to exist.

A small rockslide occurred today on the south wall of Halema‘uma‘u, sending boulders into the water at the bottom of the crater. USGS video by M. Patrick.

A view from the south rim of Halema‘uma‘u shows a lower collapsed block which has remains of Crater Rim Drive and the Halema‘uma‘u parking lot. The white feature in the lower right is a stop sign that was present at the eastern exit of the parking lot.

HVO staff work together while maintaining social distancing as they install different parts of the new Mauna Loa summit MultiGAS station on April 27. In the left side of the image, an HVO field engineer connects solar panels to the batteries that will power the MultiGAS station.

On April 27, HVO field engineers and a gas geochemist conducted fieldwork to increase HVO's volcano-monitoring capabilities. Staff installed a MultiGAS station to collect volcanic gas data from within Moku‘āweoweo, Mauna Loa's summit caldera. The work was carried out with permission of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park.

Geologic Map of the Southern Flank of Mauna Loa Volcano, Island of Hawai‘i

The relationship between Δ30 and N2/3He ratios in hydrothermal gases from Iceland and Yellowstone. Δ30 and N2/3He ratios are shown for samples collected from gases in Iceland (yellow circles) and Yellowstone (red circles). The Yellowstone mantle-endmember is arguably indistinguishable in terms of N2/3He from the convecting upper mantle (grey diamonds).

Measuring tilt in Timberline parking lot in early April 1980 during lightly falling snow. USGS photo by Don Swanson.

Clear weather allowed HVO geologists to make observations and take measurements of the water pond at Kīlauea's summit. No major changes were observed, and the water level continues to slowly rise. Note the former HVO observation tower can be seen above the geologist's helmet. 

This compilation shows the appearance of the water pond at Kīlauea's summit over the past two weeks. Day to day changes in the color of the pond are common, with portions of the pond shifting from a green hue to brown. A sharp color boundary has been common for several months in the same general area of the pond.

Members of the Clear Lake Volcanic Field research team

Locations of multichannel seismic reflection profiles (in black), collected during cruise FA2020-14. The profiles are overlain on colored and shaded multibeam bathymetry, Lidar topography (green and white) and near-shore bathymetry (darker blue), and NOAA coastal relief model (light blue and white).