Multimedia Gallery

Retired seismologist David Oppenheimer reflects on the first prototype earthquake early warning system used during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Scientists deployed an analog system to notify first responders of impending earthquake activity as they worked on rescue efforts at the Cypress Viaduct collapse in Oakland, CA.
 

This video was taken during the SW1321 training course, Streamflow Measurements Using ADCPs. On this field day, students from all over the USGS used their newfound knowledge to collect ADCP data in Windham, Maine.
 

Setting sail from Woods Hole, MA to Cape Cod Bay aboard the R/V Warren Jr. USGS scientific staff will define the geologic framework of Cape Cod Bay to aid the state of Massachusetts in management and assessment of resources and hazards.
 

Massachusetts student intern Michael Upton placing a new survey reference marker at a live recording groundwater well station.
 

Recorded June 1, 2019 - August 18, 2019: Video shows a series of photos taken every hour during daylight hours in the summer of 2019. The camera looks westward along the coastal bluffs of Barter Island, located on Alaska’s North Slope. A pole on the bluff, visible in the first half of the video, once supported another video camera that was aimed at the

This video shows a close-up of the ponded water at the bottom of Halema'uma'u. Yesterday, the separate ponds joined into a single elongate pond. The water level has continued to slowly rise.

This video shows steaming from the main pond of water at the bottom of Halema‘uma‘u as captured on Sunday, August 4. Two smaller areas of ponded water were present a short distance east of this spot. Thermal images indicate that the water surface is roughly 70 degrees Celsius (158 degrees Fahrenheit). USGS video by M. Patrick, 08-04-2019.

This is b-roll footage of a ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system seismic station. These seismic stations and sensors are deployed around California and are used to monitor earthquake activity.
 

This video shows Moku‘āweoweo, the caldera at the summit of Mauna Loa, during a routine overflight. The flight path goes from northeast to southwest, and begins at North Pit crater before crossing over the main caldera floor. In the southwest portion of the caldera floor, the 1940 and 1949 cones can be seen. The video ends as the helicopter flies over South Pit, at the

This timelapse sequence of webcam images over a 24-hour period shows a typical day at the summit of Mauna Loa. The webcam (MLcam) is located on the northeast rim of Moku‘āweoweo, Mauna Loa's summit caldera. This sequence begins in the dark, with the moon rising (white dot at left in images), then brightens as the sun rises. Clear skies in the morning shift to cloudy

In the Arctic, rivers are often thought to freeze completely during winter. Since fish need liquid water to survive, there are few places where they can live. Fish usually inhabit deep river channels and areas where springwater enters a stream. However, this video shows that winter habitat occurs in places we didn't expect, below the ice in the delta of a shallow river. 

This wide-angle video shows the southwest portion of Kīlauea caldera in the area of Halema‘uma‘u. Faint plumes of volcanic gas are rising from yellow fumaroles on the walls of the deep conical pit. Overall, no significant changes were observed at the summit on today's overflight.

A USGS crew used new drone technology to test and evaluate new technology to measure water speed from the air without touching the water. This drone footage was taken on the Missouri River at Hermann, Missouri on March 27, 2019. Scientists compared these new method results to the conventional way of taking measurements from a boat. 

This work is a part of a national

Ice jam was holding on upstream side of bridge an suddenly broke lose while in the process of making a streamflow measurement. Equipment pulled to safety, and this video taken about 5 minutes later.
 

This 3D model of the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater was constructed from thermal images taken during a recent helicopter overflight. White areas show warm spots in the crater. Despite the absence of active lava in Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō, changes at the crater have continued since magma drained from beneath it on April 30, 2018. The shape of the crater continues to change through occasional small

This video was taken during an overflight of the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater on Kīlauea Volcano's middle East Rift Zone. No major changes were observed, but the shape of the crater continues to be altered by continued rockfalls.

A burrowing owl regurgitates an owl pellet at the LAX Dunes Preserve caught by a wildlife camera.
 

This 3D model of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō's crater was created from thermal images during an overflight of the cone. The deepest portion of the crater is about 320 meters (1050 feet) below the crater floor that existed prior to April 30.

Drone footage of Whiskeytown National Recreation area in Northern California in October 2018, captured by drone pilot and USGS WERC ecologist Chase Freeman.

USGS WERC is using drone imagery to understand how the 2018 Carr Fire affected ecosystems and cultural resources. The study, a collaboration with the National Park Service (NPS), focuses on Whiskeytown National

Close up of crayfish next to center pivot. When crayfish swims away, then a diver can be seen next to the center pivot attaching the line for the dive camera transects.
 

Photos taken by the dive camera system of the lake bottom covering sections of sandy and rocky substrate with lots of dreissenid mussels dead and alive.
 

Maintenance of a high-quality ShakeAlert sensors, power and telemetry stations.

The Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) team completed its mission at Kīlauea Volcano's summit, mapping changes within the caldera. Since August 4, 2018, the number of earthquakes at the summit have decreased and the rate of subsidence has stabilized. Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) emission rates at the summit is less than 200 tonnes/day, which is lower than at any time since

Maintenance of high quality ShakeAlert sensor, power and telemetry station.
 

A closer view of the small cone forming on the floor of crater within fissure 8 today (Sept. 5). By this morning, bits of molten lava emitted from the cone every few seconds had built it up to an estimated height of around 3-4 m (about 10-13 ft).

An Unmanned Aircraft Systems overflight yesterday (September 4, 2018) showed a small cone on the floor of the crater within fissure 8. The cone formed as lava erupted from an opening on the surface of the flow that covers the crater floor.

On September 4-7, the Unmanned Aircraft Systems team flew several missions documenting changes within fissure 8 on Kīlauea's lower East Rift Zone. On September 4, lava erupted on the crater floor within the vent, building a small cone on the floor and creating a flow that did not extend beyond the vent walls. On September 5, gas bursts briefly lifted the crust over a small

During an overflight of fissure 8 this morning, HVO geologists observed low-level spattering on the new pad of lava within the cone. Slow-moving lava had just barely entered the spillway, but was not advancing down the channel.

During Kīlauea Volcano's lower East Rift Zone (LERZ) eruption, lava-flow maps were generated on a near-daily basis and published on the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory webpage. For the first week of the 2018 LERZ eruption, lava flows proved difficult to map, as they stayed close to the fissures in Leilani Estates, where vegetation obscured aerial views of their margins. Later

The Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) team circumnavigates the crater rim at the summit of Kīlauea Volcano, collecting data for digital elevation models that document summit changes. The volume change, from early May 2018 to present, is over 825 million cubic meters (1 billion cubic yards). The vertical collapse of the crater floor is more than 500 m (1600 ft). Limited UAS

Cladophora sampling site with brick marker and quadrat. Divers put cladophora samples from inside quadrat into bags to take back to the lab.
 

Diver point of view from above the dive camera system. This is a transect over rocky substrate with some cladophora on the bottom of Lake Ontario.
 

Quadrat for sampling cladophora with gobies swimming around. There is another quadrat in the distance for a different sampling site.
 

Diver completing a transect with the dive camera while another diver stands on the center pivot to keep it upright. The transect is a circle and is being controlled with the line attached to the pivot.
 

Diver travelling along the surface of the lake along with the dive camera system. The crew on the boat are there to meet the divers along with pulling the center pivot back onto the boat with the help of the davit.
 

Smallmouth bass swimming near lake bottom. The camera pans up a couple times to show the center pivot where the diver is holding on.
 

An Unmanned Aircraft Systems overflight of fissure 8 on August 21, 2018, showed no incandescence within the cinder cone. Minor amounts of gases, primarily steam, rose from the north wall of the cinder cone and from areas along the lower East Rift Zone. The interior walls of the fissure 8 cone and lava channel are slumping downward and inward. The cinder cone was about 50 m

Changes at the summit of Kīlauea between April 14 and August 20, 2018, were captured by a USGS–Hawaiian Volcano Observatory camera. This time-lapse series includes roughly one image per day. The lava lake within Halema‘uma‘u is visible in April, with overflows onto the caldera floor on April 23. The lava lake drains in early May, followed by explosive activity over the

Descending to the lake bottom to get ready for transects with the camera system and cladophora sampling. Organizing quadrats and sampling bags near the center pivot before sampling.
 

Smallmouth bass swimming in front of the dive camera system during a transect. Camera system is attached to the center pivot by a line in order to follow around in a circle.
 

The camera glances at the bottom of the boat above and then pans down to the lake bottom. The lake bottom is covered in tons of round gobies swimming around in and out of the cladophora. Again the camera pans up to show a diver and the dive camera completing a transect in the distance.
 

The Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) team assessed conditions at the fissure 8 cone and upper lava channel on August 17, 2018. At the time of the flight, the lava pond within the cone had crusted over with no observed incandescence. The reddish-brown rock inside the cone is the result of oxidation; the interaction of heated rock and gases causes black basaltic cinders to

This 3-dimensional computer model shows the structure of the fissure 8 cone on Kīlauea Volcano's lower East Rift Zone. The model was created from thermal images acquired during a helicopter overflight on August 15, 2018. The cone is currently about 30 m (100 ft) tall with a broad base. The bright white area within the cone is a small pond of lava, now largely crusted over

Lava continues to enter the ocean near the Isaac Hale Beach Park on Kīlauea Volcano's lower East Rift Zone. Although lava output from fissure 8 remains low, the ocean entry was still active during HVO's helicopter overflight on August 9, 2018. Numerous small streams of lava were oozing into the ocean near Ahalanui, creating weak plumes of laze. The southern flow margin

During this morning's overflight, HVO geologists observed low levels of lava fountaining within the fissure 8 spatter cone and crusted lava in the spillway and channel downstream. The significance of this change is not yet clear. Eruptions can wax and wane or pause for days to weeks before returning to high levels of lava discharge. New outbreaks in the area of the active 

Between mid-May and early August, 2018, the depth of Halema‘uma‘u more than tripled and its diameter more than doubled as magma from Kīlauea's shallow summit reservoir moved into the lower East Rift Zone. Evidence of subsidence is visible in this video, taken during an early morning helicopter overflight on August 6, 2018. Cracks and down-dropped blocks of the caldera 

This lava, erupted from fissure 8 on Kīlauea Volcano's lower East Rift Zone, shows classic pāhoehoe behavior. Exposed to the air, the surface of the flow chills to form a thin crust that can be stretched or broken apart, forming pieces of crust that are "subducted" back into the molten interior. The main sound is wind noise, but crackles can also be heard as flakes of