Images

Photo of the Stan Musial bridge in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Tripod deployed on the reef flat off Jurabi, Ningaloo World Heritage Site, Western Australia, with instrumentation designed to measure tides, waves, currents, and sediment being transported across the reef.

A piping plover adult standing over a nest scrape with four eggs. Photo was taken on the Garrison Reach of the Missouri River, North Dakota

Cerulean damselfish dart around lettuce coral off the Cape Range National Park along the Ningaloo Coast in Western Australia. USGS researchers combined forces with Australian colleagues in this UNESCO World Heritage Site to conduct the most extensive study of how erosion of reefs contribute sand to the beaches—a coast’s natural armor.

A piping plover adult stands on a sandbar on the Garrison Reach of the Missouri River, North Dakota. The yellow alphanumeric leg flag and color bands that identify it are clearly visible.

Caspian terns (Hydroprogne caspia) on Island 11 in Pond A16, Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, California. USGS biologists, at the request of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, used lifelike models of Caspian terns to attract these waterbirds to newly-constructed habitat in the Bay.

Gadwall ducklings in nest, Suisun Marsh, CA. 

The surface level of Lake Mead in Nevada and Arizona has fallen to a historic low as 16 years of ongoing drought in the American Southwest continue to impact the Colorado River Basin.

USGS scientists are working to model shorebird habitat availability both today and in the future, given processes like sea-level rise, in an effort to support the efficient management of beaches for both people and nesting shorebirds.

USGS scientists are working to model shorebird habitat availability both today and in the future, given processes like sea-level rise, in an effort to support the efficient management of beaches for both people and nesting shorebirds.

USGS scientists are working to model shorebird habitat availability both today and in the future, given processes like sea-level rise, in an effort to support the efficient management of beaches for both people and nesting shorebirds.

The beach-dependent shorebirds project at the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center models current and future habitat availability for nesting shorebirds in an effort to map current and likely future habitat availability on a range of sites along the U.S. Atlantic coast.

USGS ecologist Jaimie Gillespie measuring a Sediment Elevation Table (SET) on the Pamunkey River, VA. This SET is part of a larger project which consists of two SETs at each of five research sites, on both the Mattaponi and Pamunkey Rivers spanning Oligahaline to non-tidal conditions.

USGS collaborators from Marine Biological Laboratory preparing to measure greenhouse gas flux from a salt marsh study site (Cape Cod, MA).

Tripod holding instruments and cameras used to measure and study aspects of sediment movement in and around the reef.

Two banded piping plover adults stand near a nest with a small video camera pointed at it on a sandbar on the Garrison Reach of the Missouri River, North Dakota. The yellow alphanumeric leg flag and color bands that identify it are clearly visible. Video cameras were used to identify adults attending nests. 

USGS scientists are working to model shorebird habitat availability both today and in the future, given processes like sea-level rise, in an effort to support the efficient management of beaches for both people and nesting shorebirds. This photo shows an area on Long Beach Island, NJ where high quality shorebird habitat has been closed off to beach recreation.

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Scientist pulling in the beginning of the mid-water trawl on the  R/V Alaskan Gyre

Euphausids (also known as krill) and a shrimp from a trawl catch. Some of the most important forage fish species in this region include Pacific capelin, sand lance, herring and, even though they aren’t fish, euphausiids (also known as krill).

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