Images

Nearly 60 years after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Lituya Bay, Alaska — leading to a tsunami that devastated the area — six U.S. Geological Survey geologists revisited the isolated region of Alaska, to pick up where their scientific predecessors left off.

Screenshot of Total Water Level and Coastal Change Forecast Viewer on June 4, 2016, two days before Tropical Storm Colin was expected to hit Florida’s Gulf of Mexico coast.

The USGS Core Research Center collaborated with the USGS Energy Resources Program to drill a core from the Mancos Shale to aid in the oil and gas assessment. Image Credit: Joshua Hicks, USGS.

USGS scientist Sarah Hawkins, lead scientist for the Mancos Shale assessment, examining a core drilled by the USGS Core Research Center. This core provided valuable data for the assessment. Image credit: Joshua Hicks, USGS.

John Reed (USGS scientist) holding a gull marked with a satellite transmitter at the Soldotna landfill in June 2016.

USGS research vessel collecting bathymetry data at Clear Creek Reservoir.

The Great Basin area in the northern Snake Range near the Utah/Nevada boarder. 

The Great Basin area in the northern Snake Range near the Utah/Nevada boarder. 

The Great Basin area in the northern Snake Range near the Utah/Nevada boarder. 

The Great Basin area in the northern Snake Range near the Utah/Nevada boarder. 

The Great Basin area in the northern Snake Range near the Utah/Nevada boarder. 

USGS scientist Neal Pastick inspects a permafrost plot in North Slope of Alaska near Galbraith Lake.

Gulls using beach at the mouth of Kenai River during the personal use dipnet fishery for sockeye salmon; photo taken during sampling trip in July 2016.

USGS scientist Burke Minsley and project partners from the U. Alaska Fairbanks lay ground cable to measure permafrost depth at Nome Creek site north of Fairbanks, Alaska.

USGS scientist Jody Avant installs a temporary streamgage on the Brazos River near West Columbia, Texas. Rapidly deployable streamgages can be installed temporarily to provide emergency managers with additional information needed to help protect public safety.

Temporary streamgage installed by the USGS on the Brazos River near Brazoria, Texas. Rapidly deployable streamgages can be installed temporarily to provide emergency managers with additional information needed to help protect public safety.

Coal project personnel visiting Trapper Mine in northwest Colorado in June, 2016.

The photo was taken from a vantage looking up Avalanche Gulch at Red Banks (a line of cliffs along the ridge central to the photograph).

American Golden-Plover nest in dwarf shrub mat habitat. This photo was taken on the Seward Peninsula as part of the Changing Arctic Ecosystem Boreal-Arctic Transition Zone program.

This public-supply well taps groundwater in the High Plains aquifer in Texas. The strontium concentration in the sample from this well was 4,630 micrograms per liter, exceeding the health-based screening level of 4,000 micrograms per liter.

Picture of a White-tailed Tropicbird (Phaethon lepturus) flying.