Images

Description: This oblique view looking toward the northwest shows the western rim and floor of Jezero crater, Mars. A river valley cuts through the rim and ends in a fan-shaped delta deposit. The Perseverance Mars rover will land near this delta to search for evidence of past life and collect samples that could be returned to Earth by a later mission.

When you’re planning to explore someplace new, it’s always a good idea to bring a map so you can avoid dangerous terrain. This is true whether you’re heading out for a hike on Earth or you’re landing a rover on Mars!

Comparison of images showing growth of Kīlauea's summit water lake over the past year. The left image, taken on August 2, 2019, shows a small green pond that was approximately 6 ft (2 m) deep. The right image, taken on July 21, 2020, shows a lake more than 130 ft (40 m) deep with shades of tan to brown and a sharp color boundary often cutting across the lake.

View looks southwest along the eastern flank of the Elwha River delta and back towards the mouth of the river. USGS conducts regular surveys along this stretch of coastline, to monitor the evolving coastline following removal of the Elwha and Glines Canyon Dams, completed in 2014.

ANIMATED GIF: Saturday, July 25, marks the one year anniversary since water was first spotted at the bottom of Halema‘uma‘u, at the summit of Kīlauea. Over the past year, the summit water lake has grown to more than 270 m (885 ft) long and 131 m (430 ft) wide, with a surface area over 2.5 hectares (6 acres).

Kīlauea

Summit crater lake growth

July 25, 2019 to July 25, 2020

Photographs from two mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) found dead within a warm-water retention pond in Minnesota, US. (A) Jejunum with superficial pseudomembranes and deep mucosal granulomatous inflammation (clear arrow). Small degenerated metazoan parasites are present rarely within the inflamed areas (black arrow). H&E stain. (B).

Photographs from two mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) found dead within a warm-water retention pond in Minnesota, US. (A) Caeca with mucosal roughening and caseous plaque formation. A larger trematode (arrow) is found within. (B) Dilated and thinned intestine containing watery intestinal content with pinpoint white material.

In the first few minutes of Steamboat's eruptions, it has often been measured well over 300 ft. with a few exceptional eruptions measured by visitors at over 400 ft.!  In this example, done using a rangefinder by a Yellowstone National Park ranger, it comes in at 334.9 ft. For comparison, the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone is about 308 ft.

Image comparison of Kīlauea summit lake on August 2, 2019 and July July 21, 2020

The Raspberry Shake 4D (RS4D) is a personal seismograph with a vertical-component velocity transducer, and three-component (vertical, north-south, and east-west) accelerometer. A Raspberry Pi, which is a computer about the size of a credit card, powers the RS4D unit, which is about the size of a can of Spam.

National Park Service scientist using a camera paired with a GPS receiver to obtain images of Castle Geyser, Yellowstone National Park, in June 2019.

USGS gage 02172002 Lake Moultrie Tailrace Canal, SC

You have to be able to have a little fun when in the field. A colleague from the Washington State Department of Ecology hams it up while prepping for a beach survey with scientists from the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center.

USGS 021720508 COOPER RIVER ABOVE GOOSE CREEK,SC

Three researchers on the summit of Dancing Lady Mountain set up tapes and grids to complete a Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments network (GLORIA) vegetation survey.

Aerial photo showing fracture line of avalanche along a snow ridge line.

USGS gage 02172020 Cooper River at Pimlico, SC

USGS gage 02172020 Cooper River at Pimlico, SC

Researchers evaluate vegetation during a Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine (GLORIA) alpine plant survey near the summit of Seward Mountain in Glacier National Park, Montana.

Photo of surf zone offshore of Fort Stevens State Park taken from the Columbia River South Jetty observation deck.