Images

Landsat image taken in 1992 shows the Uinta Mountains east of Salt Lake City. The shades of dark green indicate healthy, undisturbed forest. Landsat image of the same area in 2010 captures the dramatic assault of mountain pine beetles. The dark red stains reveal widespread pine beetle destruction.

Digital still photograph from Massachusetts Bay near Scituate, MA showing Spiny Sunstar (Crossaster papposus), yellow encrusting Crumb of Bread Sponge (Halichondria panacea) on rock (top center), white tubular (right bottom corner) and boulders covered in pink bubblegum algae. Water depth at this location is approximately 27 meters.

A Horned Puffin flying over the water

A photo of USGS equipment and monitoring site on a bridge at Milford Lake.

Harmful algal blooms turn lake water emerald green

Harmful algal blooms turn water in Milford Lake emerald green

Horned Puffin, one of the species affected by a recent seabird die-off in the Pribilof Islands, AK. Near Chisik Island in Lower Cook Inlet, Alaska

Molybdenite mineral coating on a fractured surface in Tertiary granite north of Lake Clark

New technology is helping the USGS monitor harmful algal blooms

Pallid sturgeon free embryos on the day of hatch, approximately 8-9 mm (about 0.33 of an inch) in length.

Pallid sturgeon free embryo at approximately 10 days post-hatch, approximately 19-20 mm (about 0.77 of an inch) in length.

Pallid sturgeon free embryo at approximately 2 days post-hatch, approximately 11-12 mm (about 0.45 of an inch) in length.

Figure 3. Pallid sturgeon free embryo at approximately 5 days post-hatch, approximately 14-15 mm (about 0.57 of an inch) in length.

Image of the Western Fisheries Research Center, Columbia River Research Laboratory, Cook, WA

USGS hydrologist Mark Reid examines an extensional basin in the middle of the Oso landslide deposit.  The headscarp (near-vertical cliff at the back of the landslide) is visible at the top of the image.  The prominent tree is one of many that fell and became perched as the landslide spread out over the river valley.

Lake trout historically supported the most valuable freshwater commercial fisheries in North America, but their populations crashed in parts of the Great Lakes during the 1950s and 1960s due to overfishing and invasive species.

Massive defoliation caused by a severe outbreak of the European gypsy moth caterpillar during the spring and summer of 2016 across southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic was easily captured by the Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager sensor from 438 miles in space.

Bathymetry survey with Trimble S6 robotic total station, hydrolite single-beam echosounder transducer, and HYPACK software, measuring streambed depths along bridge pier on Beaverhead River in Twin Bridges, MT

The City of Wichita's Equus Beds Aquifer Storage and Recovery Phase II river intake structure near Sedgwick, Kansas. A new USGS study shows that water quality on the Little Arkansas River and in the Equus Beds aquifer has not substantially changed since 2007 recharge activities began in the Equus Beds aquifer.

Ellerbe Creek, Durham, NC
 

USGS scientist sampling water in Klamath Lake.