Multimedia Gallery

In the past, users spent 80% of their time downloading and preparing Landsat data to be processed. With Landsat in the cloud, you can get direct access to stream the Landsat archive without the need to download large amounts of files, by leveraging the Cloud Optimized Geotiff, or "COG". COGs are just like the Geotiff that you're used to only unpackaged and internally tiled

The US Geological Survey's Earth Resources Observation and Science Center, or "EROS" archive’s data from the LandSat satellites which have been in operation from 1972 to the present day. EarthShots presents environmental changes using Landsat images. 
 

This video shows a California tiger salamander finding its way to an underpass designed to help amphibians and reptiles cross the road safely, with the help of a "turn-around" that helps guide the salamander back in the right direction as it travels away from the underpass. The salamander was caught on wildlife cameras at various points between the turn-around and the

A small watershed restoration project proves that land farmed for half a century can be returned to a previous state. In 2002, Mike Osterholm bought 98 acres in northeastern Iowa, most of it annually tilled cropland. The land included the confluence of Duck Creek and Waterloo Creek. He observed soggy patches of ground during wet periods and marked the locations with flags

Have you ever wondered what (or who) inspired our employees to become scientists? This video, created for the 2021 Bring a Kid to Work Day event, asks that question of a handful of USGS scientists.
 

Have you ever wondered what it's like to work for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)? We asked a handful of our scientists what they love about their jobs. Here's what they had to say about that...
 

Welcome to the "The I Am A..." series. This is the seventh video in a series of USGS whiteboard animations that highlight USGS careers. The concept is to show "what society (or my mom) thinks I do" compared with "what I really do." One image captures a more whimsical representation of a "scientist" and the second demonstrates a more accurate representation of what we

The Bay of Fundy in Canada has a unique geography funneling the Atlantic Ocean into some of the world's highest tides. At some points the water level can rise and fall over forty feet. The water's edge at Minas Basin shown in these Landsat 8 images changes dramatically depending on the day and time. Because Landsat 8 passes over quickly, the imagery cannot reveal the

There are thousands of volcanic features distributed throughout the southwest United States, which are grouped together in volcanic fields. The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory monitors these volcanoes using a combination of techniques. While YVO hasn’t seen anything to suggest magma is on the move, the area is stretched and pulled apart to produce numerous tectonic

This video provides background on and shows the release of California red-legged frog tadpoles into a pond in San Diego County, CA on March 31, 2021. These tadpoles originated from a pond in the Sierra San Pedro Martir Mountains in Baja California, Mexico and were translocated as eggs to the USA on Feb 4, 2021 as part of a multi-national conservation team consisting of TNC

With existing USGS tools you can search for scenes, view thumbnail browse images of scenes, and download scene-based data, all derived from the USGS archive of scene-based products. Now that Landsat scene data has been unpacked and stored in the cloud, LandsatLook 2.0 can access that data and present it to users in ways that were not previously possible. Thanks to the

A mudslide near the 2020 Dolan Fire's ignition point chopped through a chunk of California's scenic State Highway 1 in late January. 

The Dolan Fire began near Big Sur on August 18th, 2020. It scarred nearly 125,000 acres before being fully contained in December. 

The damage is clear in false color Landsat 8 imagery from August and October. The scar is still

The Earth As Art project began in the early 2000s, and its original intent remains the same: to produce images that do not look like satellite images at first glance. Earth As Art shows not only what satellites capture in the visible wavelengths of light you and I can see, but also what’s hiding in the invisible wavelengths that Landsat sensors can detect in the infrared

The Earth As Art project began in the early 2000s, and its original intent remains the same: to produce images that do not look like satellite images at first glance. Earth As Art shows not only what satellites capture in the visible wavelengths of light you and I can see, but also what’s hiding in the invisible wavelengths that Landsat sensors can detect in the infrared

An overview of LCMAP Collection 1 science products: Time of Spectral Change, and Spectral Change Magnitude products.

LCMAP Collection 1 science products include ten science products offering different perspectives and ways to study land change across the country through time. While each product can be used separately, they are complimentary and inform one another.

This video explains how streamgages are used to measure the height and flow, or speed, of streams. By monitoring the height and flow of streams, the people who manage water infrastructure can have advanced noted of when the water is rising and how fast it’s coming. This helps to prepare for flooding, mudslides, and other hazardous impacts that a lot of fast-moving water

Welcome to the "The I Am A..." series. This is the sixth video in a series of USGS whiteboard animations that highlight USGS careers. The concept is to show "what society (or my mom) thinks I do" compared with "what I really do." One image captures a more whimsical representation of a "scientist" and the second demonstrates a more accurate representation of what we really

The remote ice fields of southern Chile have seen some dramatic change over the past three decades; change made clear by Landsat's deep archive of imagery. In 1987, the terminus of Erasmo Glacier was at the end of a low sloping valley. By 2015 it had retreated almost 3 kilometers, and formed a water body referred to as a proglacial lake. The end of the glacier now lies

Mike Poland, Scientist-in-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, debunks the misconception that if Yellowstone were to erupt, it would be Armageddon. In fact, the most common form of eruptive activity at Yellowstone is a lava flow, and even those aren't that common. They happen only once every few tens of thousands of years. Learn more in this monthly overview of

Welcome to the "The I Am A..." series. This is the fifth video in a series of USGS whiteboard animations that highlight USGS careers. The concept is to show "what society (or my mom) thinks I do" compared with "what I really do." One image captures a more whimsical representation of a "scientist" and the second demonstrates a more accurate representation of what we really

Mike Poland, Scientist-in-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, gives an overview of activity at Yellowstone Volcano during January 2021.
 

The visible impact of climate change on the Earth’s surface is often clearest in the Arctic’s receding glaciers and swelling glacial lakes. Southeastern Alaska’s Harlequin Lake is one of the fastest-growing in North America. These false color Landsat images show the rapidly-retreating Yakutat Glacier, which feeds the lake. Landsat can be used to illustrate the lake’s

Alaska's coastal and offshore waters provide foraging habitat for an estimated 100 million birds comprising more than 90 different species. Researchers at the USGS Alaska Science Center work in collaboration with many partner agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities and rehabilitation centers to investigate seabirds. USGS ecosystems research is focused on

On December 26th, 2004, a massive 9.1 magnitude earthquake struck off the west coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. The third largest earthquake ever recorded lifted the sea floor several meters, causing tsunami waves to ripple out in all directions and race across the ocean. Banda Aceh bore the brunt of the waves just 15 to 20 minutes after the earthquake. Waves in some

The waves of sugar cane that once defined the Hawaiian island landscape of Maui, have slowly given way to non-native annual grasses in recent decades. Those grasses have become a fire hazard along the way.

The closure of central Maui's last large cane mill in 2016 opened up some 36,000 acres for new growth. Some of those acres burned in 2019 during one of the island

Mike Poland, Scientist-in-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, provides an overview of activity at Yellowstone during December 2020.
 

A 2020 year in review of the many accomplishments of the US Geological Survey. A year that began with seismic activity in Southwest Puerto Rico, to the first-ever public testing of USGS ShakeAlerts, USGS scientists and technicians helped to track storm data during the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane season. Mapping in high resolution the Nation's rivers and streams, to precise

Lava Returns to Halema'uma'u, as captured in this timelapse from the K2cam, located at the HVO Observation Tower (Kīlauea Volcano). Timelapse is from December 20, 2020, 5:50 a.m. to December 21, 2020, 11:57 p.m. The K2cam is a research camera mounted in the observation tower at the previous Hawaiian Volcano Observatory building on the rim of Kīlauea caldera within Hawai'i

The western wall of Uzbekistan's Sardoba Reservoir breached on May 1st, 2020 after a week of heavy rain. Thousands were evacuated as water rushed north into farmland and villages across the central Asian country and into neighboring Kazakhstan. Imagery from Europe's Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellite shows water pooling across a wide area. In the May 4th image 3 days after

An introduction to the New England Water Science Center's Director and his vision for the Center.
 

Mike Poland, Scientist-in-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, gives an overview of activity at Yellowstone during November 2020.
 

The relationship between people and wildfire has always been paradoxical: fire is an essential ecological process and management tool but can also be detrimental to life and property. Consequently, fire regimes have been modified throughout history through both intentional burning to promote benefits and active suppression to reduce risks. Reintroducing fire and its

La relación entre la gente y los incendios forestales siempre ha sido paradójica: el fuego es esencial como proceso ecológico y herramienta de gestión, pero también puede ser perjudicial para la vida y la propiedad. En consecuencia, los regímenes de incendios se han modificado a lo largo de la historia, mediante quemas intencionales para promover sus beneficios o mediante

Just what is the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory? In this video, Mike Poland, Scientist-in-Charge of YVO, gives an overview of the institutions that make up the Observatory, how YVO monitors volcano and earthquake activity at Yellowstone, the geologic hazards of the region, and some of the noteworthy new results and observations from YVO scientists.
 

Petermann Glacier in northwestern Greenland is known to generate large icebergs, most notably in 2010 and 2012. Another large iceberg may be forming now. A new rift was spotted on the glacier in 2017. Since then, imagery from both Landsat and Europe's Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites show the rift lengthening and meeting up with and older crack. The potential iceberg could

This is EROS.

It's located just north of Sioux Falls in South Dakota in the United States on the planet Earth!

EROS stands for Earth Resources Observation and Science. It's a federal government facility where over 600 talented women and men work together to capture, store, and study images of the Earth taken from high above. Our Earth is always changing, and

Mike Poland, Scientist-in-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, gives an overview of activity at Yellowstone during October 2020.
 

The punishing derecho storm that struck the Midwest in early August had an immediate impact on Iowa's farm fields. But it took weeks for the long term damage to appear in satellite imagery. Landsat 8 passed over central Iowa just one day after 100 mile per hour winds pummeled fields of corn and soybeans leaving thousands without power. The lighter shades of green in  the

Yellowstone Volcano Observatory Scientist-in-Charge Mike Poland visits Yellowstone National Park to tell the story of how the ground there moves up and down over time. This motion has been measured using a variety of techniques over the past 100 years, and from geological mapping scientists can even tell how the ground has moved going back about 15,000 years! This research

The Landsat archive is the world's longest continuously collected record of the Earth's surface. In mid September, it notched another milestone by adding its nine millionth scene. This particular image from north central Paraguay helps tell the kind of story that only a long historical record like Landsat can. The rectangular tracks of brown and tan that dapple the

Data products from the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center have long informed the delivery of food aid through a partnership with the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). New research explores the use of satellite data to improve index insurance, an affordable crop insurance product that aims to help farmers in developing countries make

As part of Earth Science Week 2020, USGS scientist Shannon Mahan takes us on a tour of quartz and how geologists like her use quartz to study all kinds of things, from earthquakes to archaeology.
 

Join the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center on an adventure in the field! Our team of scientists will take you on board a personal watercraft near downtown St. Pete to show you how they collect bathymetry data – which is the depth of the ocean floor (in this case, Tampa Bay). This video was created as part of the 2020 St. Petersburg Science Festival (

Mike Poland, Scientist-in-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, gives an overview of activity at Yellowstone during September 2020.
 

The importance of our Nation’s coasts is indisputable. They provide homes for people and animals alike, and support the Nation’s economy. The USGS Coastal Change Hazards team studies how our shorelines change over time, especially following extreme events such as storms and hurricanes. In this video, created for the 2020 virtual St.

The importance of our Nation’s coasts is indisputable. They provide homes for people and animals alike, and support the Nation’s economy. The USGS Coastal Change Hazards team studies how our shorelines change over time, especially following extreme events such as storms and hurricanes. In this video, created for the 2020 virtual St.

Throughout the historically active 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season,USGS hydrologists have been working quickly to collect vital flood and streamflow information in impacted areas.