Images

The Geospace Navigator bird is a streamer depth control device, used with a high-resolution seismic system to regulate and record the depth of the streamer.

The Geospace Navigator bird is a streamer depth control device, used with a high-resolution seismic system to regulate and record the depth of the streamer.

The Geospace Navigator bird is a streamer depth control device, used with a high-resolution seismic system to regulate and record the depth of the streamer.

Hydrologic technician Chris Peskuski snapped this picture from Eagle Nest Dam overlooking the Cimarron River where streamflow measurements are made to measure outflow from the dam. Eagle Nest Dam sits at 8,300 feet elevation and is surrounded by two of the highest peaks in New Mexico; Wheeler Peak and Baldy Mountain.

A compass on the peak of Hawksbill Mountain, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia.

An increasingly large gash has opened up in northern Russia's Siberian tundra. During the past few decades, warmer summers and shorter winters have caused permafrost in this region to thaw, which then allows the warmed soils on slopes to slump and erode.

Chart showing changes in vegetation density in the Mississippi River delta in Louisiana, May 2015-May 2016. From a USGS Open File Report published in July 2017 by co-authors Elijah Ramsey III and Amina Rangoonwala,

Research vessel Ocean Starr in Alaska.

USGS scientists deploy a seismic streamer aboard the R/V David Starr offshore of southeast Alaska to study the Queen Charlotte Fault.

Field crew install a Restoration Field Trial Network garden in the rangelands of Northern Arizona.

USGS biological science technician Shannon Waters releases a Chinook Salmon into an Alaskan river.

Photograph of USGS Hydrologic technician, Shawn Meyer, preparing the UAS for a flight,

Coastal ecosystem studies at Trinidad coast, California. 

WERC researcher conducting elevation surveys in San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge

Columbia River mouth bathymetry from USGS data release

Amphitheater Mountain and Soda Butte Creek viewed from the Yellowstone National Park northeast entrance road. 

On an average day during the fire season, multiple wildfires burn in the western United States. For example, 216 fires were active on July 7, 2017. Firefighters were battling 27 of these fires through ground and air support.

This spectacular lava fountain, erupting from Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō on June 30, 1984, lasted just over 7 hours and reached a height of 318 m (1043 ft). It was one of 44 high lava fountains erupted during the first 3.5 years of Kīlauea Volcano's ongoing East Rift Zone eruption, which began in January 1983.

On the evening of June 30, 2008, littoral explosions at Kīlauea Volcano's Waikupanaha ocean entry created a fireworks-like display as incandescent fragments of lava flew through the air. When molten lava entered the sea, the water flashed to steam, triggering explosions that hurled spatter and other lava fragments up to heights of 50 m (164 ft).

This video clip shows Kīlauea Volcano's Kamokuna ocean entry, with the steam plume rising from the front of the lava delta. Recent flows have covered the surface of the delta with fresh lava.

On March 6, 2011, USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientists were stationed along Kīlauea Volcano's East Rift Zone to monitor the progression of erupting fissures that had opened west of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō the day before. Lava spewing from this fissure (background) reached heights up to 30 m (100 ft) and produced a massive lava flow, visible behind the HVO scientist.