Images

American pika in the Northern Cascades. American pikas occupy talus slopes in mountain ecosystems throughout western North America.

Turbid waters in the Little Holland Tract area of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta, California. Turbidity affects light penetration and  ecological productivity, recreational values, and habitat quality, and causes lakes to fill in faster.

Dr. Brian Halstead, USGS WERC, gestures to the Randall House, now abandoned, constructed in the early 20th century. The house is now maintained by the National Park Service as a maternity roost for Townsend's Big-Eared bats.

Photo of driftwood, and invasive grasses and iceplant at Point Reyes National Seashore, CA. Such "dune drainages" make surprising habitat for a threatened species of amphibian: the California red-legged frog.

Josh Logan operates a drone carrying a precision GPS and special camera to map the shore at Long Beach, Washington. USGS scientists used the same system for detailed mapping of beaches beside Monterey Bay, California. 

Driftwood and sand dunes at the Point Reyes National Seashore.

Pat Kleeman, USGS WERC, searches for threatened California red-legged frogs in a dune drainage, Point Reyes National Seashore.

Biologists identify species, count, measure length, and release thousands of fish each year to understand how fish use nearshore habitats.

Dead trees like the ones featured in this photo still provide valuable habitat for wildlife, including birds.

A fyke net or fish trap used for continuous sampling of nearshore fish in shallow waters. Fish swimming along the beach are stopped by a small-mesh net that guides them in to one of these two underwater fish traps that are set side by side. Researchers visit nets at least once a day to identify, count, and release fish.

The world's largest continuous hops-growing region by area is Hallertau, just north of Munich. More than 80 percent of Germany's hops come from this 42,000-acre stretch of fertile loess soil.

An underwater image of fish captured by a fyke net near Kaktovik, Alaska, Beaufort Sea, USA. The small silver fish with dark backs are young-of-year (age-0) Arctic cisco (Coregonus autumnalis) and the flatfish are Arctic flounder (Liopsetta glacialis).

U.S. Geological Survey, New Mexico Water Science Center - Las Cruces Field Office location

Photograph showing a continuous water-quality monitor at the Salmon River near East Hampton, Connecticut.

This perched lava channel, which was as much as 150 feet (45 meters) above the ground, carried lava downslope from the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō Fissure D vent during episode 58 of Kīlauea Volcano's ongoing East Rift Zone eruption. The channel was the main path for lava between July and November 2007. Episode 58 continued until early March 2011.

Charcoal collected from under the base of a pāhoehoe flow in a black sooty zone over orange ash.  The black sooty zone represents the region where the vegetation was converted to charcoal.  The hammer is approximately 13 inches long. USGS photo by F. Trusdell. 

Microscopic view of blue green algae sample. Some algae produce toxins that threaten the health and safety of living things that come in direct contact. Cyanobacteria - Scytonema (blue green algae)

GeoGirls collect water samples and flow measurements to model the transport of volcanic sediments.

Using kayak to measure cross-sectional depth and water surface of Gallatin River

To collect, identify and document these single-celled algae called desmids, USGS biologist Barry H. Rosen has traveled by airboat into the interior of Florida’s Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, where decaying marsh grasses created a mosaic of peat soils and the soft, slightly acidic water where desmids grow.

This single-celled freshwater algae wasa collected as part of the first-ever study of the green algae family called desmids in Florida’s Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, in the northern Everglades. USGS biologist Barry H.