Images

The fantail of the R/V Savannah loaded with USGS gear recovered from near Matanzas Inlet, FL.  The data collected by the sensors in winter 2018 will be used to assess storm effects on coastal inlet dynamics.
 

 USGS personnel control chain as it went through a block on recovery of a seafloor platform. The platform had been deployed off Matanzas Inlet, FL in winter 2018 to assess storm effects on coastal inlet dynamics.

This light gray block of rock (backpack for scale) is part of the approximately 830-year-old explosion deposit on the northwest rim of Moku‘āweoweo, the summit caldera of Mauna Loa. USGS photo by F.A. Trusdell.

This satellite image was captured on Thursday, April 12, by the Landsat 8 satellite. Although this is a false-color image, the color map has been chosen to mimic what the human eye would expect to see. Bright red pixels depict areas of high temperatures and show active lava. White areas are clouds.

Sunrise over the Atlantic near Matanzas Inlet, FL. USGS was recovering seafloor platforms deployed to quantify storm effects on coastal inlet dynamics.

Image showing MTL contour, marsh edge, and example of calculating the marsh edge

Most of the lava flow (dark black) produced by the April 1868 Mauna Loa eruption can be seen in this aerial photo on the west (left) side of the prominent fault scarp, known informally as the Kahuku pali (formal names are Pali o Mamalu for the upper half and Pali‘okūlani for the lower half of the scarp).

Video: Clear skies and sunshine provided a spectacular view of Kīlauea Volcano's summit lava lake this morning. Spattering on the north side and center of the lake surface—a departure from its more common location on the southeast side of the lake—occasionally happens when the surface flow direction reverses.

Cover of The HayWired Earthquake Scenario—We Can Outsmart Disaster, USGS Fact Sheet 2018-3016

Working in a temporary lab in Kibbutz Moran, Lloyd Carothers (left, IRIS-PASSCAL) and Eldad Levi (Geophysical Institute of Israel) download data from seismic receivers (in blue and yellow boxes) retrieved after completion of the Dead Sea fault experiment.

The Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Institute research boat Lillian on its way to deploy receivers in the Sea of Galilee to record data during an April, 2018 experiment to image the deep structure of the Dead Sea fault in Israel.

One of 40 seismic receivers modified to work in water and anchored to the bottom of the Sea of Galilee in Israel's Dead Sea fault zone.

USGS geomorphologist Pat Limber drives an all-terrain vehicle equipped with differential GPS, on Ellwood Beach in Goleta, California, collecting topographic, or elevation and contour, data. These data, accurate to about 1 inch (about 2 centimeters) both horizontally and vertically, are used to monitor seasonal beach changes.

Destruction caused by the 1868 great Ka'ū earthquake included the Wai'ōhinu church, shown here, in the Ka'ū District of Hawaiʻi Island. With a magnitude estimated at 7.9, the earthquake is the largest in Hawaii's recorded history. Photo by Henry L. Chase, published in "Volcanoes of Kīlauea and Mauna Loa on the Island of Hawaiʻi" by W.T.

[Left] This cross-section through the south part of the Island of Hawai'i illustrates the hypocenter of the 1868 great Kaʻū earthquake (red star), located on the décollement (bold black line) between Mauna Loa (brown) and the ancient ocean floor (tan). Earth's lithospheric mantle and the ocean are represented in green and blue, respectively.

Jackson Currie and Alex Snyder of the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center drive personal watercraft (PWCs) offshore of San Ysidro and Oak Creeks, which let out onto Miramar Beach in Montecito, California.

USGS volunteer Josh Brown on Santa Claus Beach, Carpinteria, at the start of a 14-mile walking survey of southern California beaches. The differential GPS equipment carried in the backpack collects elevation, or topographic, data of the beach, accurate to about 1 inch (2 centimeters) both horizontally and vertically.

USGS geomorphologist Pat Limber drives an all-terrain vehicle equipped with differential GPS, on San Buenaventura Beach south of Ventura Pier, Ventura California, collects topographic, or elevation and contour, data. These data, accurate to about 1 inch (about 2 centimeters) both horizontally and vertically, are used to monitor seasonal beach changes.

Jackson Currie of the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center drives a personal watercraft (PWC) offshore of Butterfly Beach in Montecito, California. The equipment on the PWC collects bathymetry, or depth, data which is used to map the nearshore. USGS has been mapping this area twice yearly—every spring and fall—since 2005.

Drone image of Nauset Inlet, Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts

Footprints in mud layer deposited on the sand at Miramar Beach in Montecito, California, by January 9 flood waters coming down San Ysidro Creek.