Images

Photograph of Pingok Island, Alaska, reveals physical features of a changing Arctic: collapsing bluffs, salt-killed tundra (lighter brown near the bluff edge), and drained thermokarst lakes (rust-colored depressions).

An oblique aerial photograph shows the currently active Long Range Radar Site on Barter Island, formerly a DEW Line (Distant Early Warning) station that was deactivated in 1990. The Cold War-era landfill in the foreground of the photograph was at immediate risk from coastal erosion in 2006 and has since been relocated farther inland.

Photograph of barrier islands near the western terminus of Icy Reef located on the Beaufort Sea coast of Alaska, looking south. Egaksrak Lagoon separates the islands from the low-lying mainland coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Brooks Range in the background.

This photograph shows ice-wedge polygons and an eroding shoreline at Cape Halkett on the Beaufort Sea coast of Alaska. Coastal erosion along the Arctic coast is chronic, widespread, and potentially accelerating, posing threats to infrastructure important for defense and energy purposes, natural shoreline habitats, and nearby Native communities.

Young mountain big sagebrush shown in the foreground are re-establishing in a native bunchgrass community 15 years after a fire along the Boise Front Mountains looking unto the Snake River Plain, Idaho.

Panoramic photograph from the southern rim of Mount St. Helens' crater rim looking north with accompanying annotation.

View the annotated version of this photograph.

View northward from Mount St. Helens' crater rim, July 2006.

View the annotated image.

San Francisco Volcanic Field Oct 12, 2003 ASTER satellite image draped over USGS topographic data. San Francisco Mountain upper center-right, volcanic field cinder cones and lava flows in foreground.

Lava delta at East Lae‘apuki on the southeast coast of Kīlauea Volcano is about 17 hectares (43 acres). The delta extends about 400 m seaward from the sea cliff and is about 850 m long parallel to the shoreline. The steep sea cliff embayment resulted from collapses of earlier deltas; the collapses undermined and took away parts of the cliff.

Substantial cracks cutting across a lava delta are clear indication that the delta is subsiding as it grows across the unstable pile of interfingering lava flows and fragments built on the steep submarine slope. The larger cracks on this delta are 1-2 m (3-6 ft) wide.

Helicopter flying toward lava spine at Mount St. Helens to collect rocks—note the "Jaws" collector hanging underneath. April 28, 2007

USGS personnel measuring flood overflow near Whitey's Restaurant in East Grand Forks.

Temporary dike located South of Main Avenue Bridge in Fargo, North Dakota.

Red River of the North flooding the 1st Avenue North Bridge in Fargo, ND.

The Wild Rice River near Abercrombie, North Dakota flooding.

Glacier Peak is the tallest peak amongst a sea of many mountains in northern Washington.

Upper west face of Glacier Peak, Washington.

USGS scientists Andrew Schwartz and Dan Hanes maneuver a current profiler for a study of surf-zone hydrodynamics at Ocean Beach, on the west side of San Francisco, California. Beach erosion has been a continuing problem in this area.

A gas plume arising from Augustine Volcano during it's eruptive phase 2005-06. This photo was taken during  a FLIR/maintenance flight on January 24, 2006.