Multimedia Gallery

Vegetation grows abundantly on a once-flooded region of the Santa Ynez River. Located 5 ft adjacent from this picture is the actual flowing region of the stream. It is impressive to see the abrupt change in vegetation near stream environments.  Golden grasses, brick red brush, blue sky, and rocks coated white from sun-dried/sun-bleached algae where water used to sustain

Tazlina River bridge

Kasilof River sonar on a bridge

What is a meniscus?

A meniscus is a curve in the surface of a molecular substance (water, of course) when it touches another material. With water, you can think of it as when water sticks to the inside of a glass.

Why a meniscus occurs

Adhesion is responsible for a meniscus and this has to do in part with water's fairly high surface tension. Water

It seems to defy the laws of physics, but a paper clip made of steel can indeed float on the water surface. The high surface tension helps the paper clip - with much higher density - float on the water.

The cohesive forces between liquid molecules are

Data locations for Ice Island Arctic Ocean Heat Flow Studies

Sampling Big Sandy River below Farson, WY

The USGS maintains and monitors hundreds of streamgages across California, as well as across the Nation. Nearly all data collected by the USGS is made public and most in near real-time. Cities can use the data for flood mitigation and water supply. Understanding the amount of water flowing in the watersheds all across America is essential to everything we do, as water is

The California Aqueduct flowing near Huron, CA in the San Joaquin Valley.  This spot is near one of several USGS land subsidence monitoring stations in the San Joaquin Valley. Land subsidence has reduced the conveyance capacity of the Aqueduct and other water

Qu'est-ce que le cycle de l'eau?

Qu'est-ce que le cycle de l'eau? Je peux facilement vous répondre - c'est "moi" partout! Le cycle de l'eau décrit l'existence et le mouvement de l'eau sur, dans et au-dessus de la Terre. L'eau de la Terre est toujours en mouvement et change toujours d'états, du liquide à la vapeur à la glace et vice versa. Le cycle

USGS worked with regional partners to provide Ohio K-12 teachers educational resources to teach about watersheds in their classrooms. 

Chemicals can take a long time to appear in groundwater

The effects of past and present land-use practices may take decades to become apparent in groundwater. When weighing management decisions for protection of groundwater quality, it is important to consider the time lag between application of pesticides and fertilizers to the land and arrival of

Two red sea urchins (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) sit on the deck of the R/V Falkor. These sea urchins were collected during the #HuntingBubbles research cruise led by the USGS and Schmidt Ocean Institute, which focused on exploring and understanding methane seeps and the communities that depend on them along the Cascadia Margin. Read more about the cruise and its

Map of Fiscal Year 2019 status of 3DEP quality data, as of June 2019. The Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) seeks submission of proposals to continue to expand the extent of lidar data that meet 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) specifications. 

Northern Fulmars, Black-legged Kittiwakes, and Common Murres have all been tested for and contained harmful algal bloom (HAB) toxins. Since 2015, the USGS has worked with a variety of stakeholders to develop testing methods and research projects to better understand the geographic extent, timing and impacts of algal toxins in Alaska marine ecosystems.

Marine geochemist Renee Takesue collects a sample of exposed mud in a marsh near Sonoma Creek, California. She will look here and in nearby San Pablo Bay for chemicals from the 2017 Nuns Wildfire that can harm wildlife. The stormy winter of 2018 may have transported these contaminants from the Sonoma Creek watershed into San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge. This

USGS scientist Summer Praetorius collects samples from an ocean sediment core in the Pacific Ocean Paleoclimatology Lab at Menlo Park, CA. The sediment core is from Tanner Basin, located about 200 miles due west of San Diego in the eastern Pacific Ocean. This area is the southern-most extension of the California Current upwelling system, which brings cold nutrient-rich

Samples being analyzed in a sealed quartz cuvette on the Aqualog spectrophotometer

Drying table with clean dishes

Barnstead e-pure organic free water filtration system in Trace Metals Lab

Sample visualization of pollution sources in Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Sample graphic of data visualization of Chesapeake Data Dashboard

Chart displaying nontidal monitoring network and upstream drainage from monitoring locations.

Cohesion: Hydrogen Bonds Make Water Sticky

Water has an amazing ability to adhere (stick) to itself and to other substances. The property of cohesion describes the

Harmful Algal Blooms

USGS scientists identified potentially harmful levels of cyanobacteria in lakes they sampled in Illinois during the drought of 2012. Toxins produced by the cyanobacteria were measured at harmful concentrations in four lakes.  Cyanobacteria, also called blue-green algae, are capable of generating toxins (cyanotoxins), such as microcystin, that

Rock art found etched into the rocks of Desert Spring Wash

In the desert, mother nature provides us with curved and sharp edged shapes, thorns and soft cottonny seeds, as well as brilliant and subdued colors side by side. The desert seems to have a bit of everything.

Bill Burton follows the natural sand trail back to camp made by runnoff in a dry wash as the setting sun makes all the grasses glisten as they sway in the breeze.

Bill Burton studies a fossil as the sun sets over the Uintah Basin.

Pat Kikut and Graham Lederer move quietly by the beautiful geologic formations along the Green River.

Tom Minckley and Nick Hammond study the shore for plant and animal species and to enjoy the beautiful landscapes as they pass by.

Mitch Eaton attempts some fly fishing ultimately to no avail while Austin Alvarado looks on. As with the original 1869 Powell expedition, catching fish in the Green River is not an easily acocmplished endeavor.

While the lavendar color of the Tamarisk plant is nice to see, the plant is actually an invasive species. The Tamarisk Beatle was released in 2005 to combat the spread of the plant and has been quite successful in doing so.

As Split Mountain slowly retreats from view, expedition leader Tom Minckley and Jaime Delano make their way steadily down river.

Three boats make their way around the bend near Dinosaur National Monument while the jagged edges of Split Mountain tower in the background.

Jaime Delano (USGS) , Graham Lederer (USGS), and Ben Capelin (SCREE) as the expedition departs from Split Mountain Campground. The media team of Ben Kraushaar and Cody (last name unknown) follw the other boats while filiming.

Anya Metcalf was the insict expert on this trip. We started pointout out and catching bugs for her to identify. This one crawled across camp during our podcast recording. It turned out to be a Golden Stonefly with a small pseudoscoprion attached to the mandlible using the fly for dispersal. The insect life, and the roll they play in the ecosystem, are not usually things I