Images

One of 40 seismic receivers modified to work in water and anchored to the bottom of the Sea of Galilee in Israel's Dead Sea fault zone.

USGS geomorphologist Pat Limber drives an all-terrain vehicle equipped with differential GPS, on Ellwood Beach in Goleta, California, collecting topographic, or elevation and contour, data. These data, accurate to about 1 inch (about 2 centimeters) both horizontally and vertically, are used to monitor seasonal beach changes.

USGS volunteer Josh Brown on Santa Claus Beach, Carpinteria, at the start of a 14-mile walking survey of southern California beaches. The differential GPS equipment carried in the backpack collects elevation, or topographic, data of the beach, accurate to about 1 inch (2 centimeters) both horizontally and vertically.

Jackson Currie of the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center drives a personal watercraft (PWC) offshore of Butterfly Beach in Montecito, California. The equipment on the PWC collects bathymetry, or depth, data which is used to map the nearshore. USGS has been mapping this area twice yearly—every spring and fall—since 2005.

Two USGS scientists operate personal watercraft equipped with sonar and GPS along the beachfront off San Ysidro Creek, near Fernald Point in Montecito, California. They will use the data collected to create bathymetric (depth) maps.

Jackson Currie and Alex Snyder of the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center drive personal watercraft (PWCs) offshore of San Ysidro and Oak Creeks, which let out onto Miramar Beach in Montecito, California.

USGS geomorphologist Pat Limber drives an all-terrain vehicle equipped with differential GPS, on San Buenaventura Beach south of Ventura Pier, Ventura California, collects topographic, or elevation and contour, data. These data, accurate to about 1 inch (about 2 centimeters) both horizontally and vertically, are used to monitor seasonal beach changes.

Shruti Khanna (left, California Department of Fish and Wildlife) and Judy Drexler (USGS California Water Science Center) on the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center’s research vessel Parke Snavely during fieldwork in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

Drone image of Nauset Inlet, Cape Cod National Seashore, Massachusetts

Patches of dark sand cling to an instrument package that collected data for approximately two weeks at the Mokelumne River site—evidence that currents at the site were strong enough to carry sand, which is heavier than mud, probably during elevated river flows following two storms in the watershed.

Footprints in mud layer deposited on the sand at Miramar Beach in Montecito, California, by January 9 flood waters coming down San Ysidro Creek.

Dive Safety Officer (DSO) Jake Emmert from Moody Gardens Aquarium enters a flooded coastal cave beneath the tropical forest of the Yucatan Peninsula through a small open-water pool, locally known as a cenote.  Cave diving scientists John Pohlman (USGS) and David Brankovits (USGS/WHOI) will use these entrances over the coming days to access a vast network o

Dan Powers (USGS PCMSC) and Rachel Marcuson (USGS PCMSC) prepare to deploy a Gomex sediment corer from the R/V Snavely in the Mokulumne River near confluence of San Joaquin River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, CA.

USGS physical scientist Cordell Johnson, at left, and USGS research oceanographer Jessie Lacy, both from the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, guide a tripod with instruments into the waters of the Mokelumne River near the confluence with the San Joaquin River. The Mokelumne is part of the vast Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in California,&nbs

Brett Tipple (University of California, Santa Cruz) collects a sample of charcoal and soil adjacent to a gully forming on a hillslope above Sonoma Creek, which was burned by the Nuns wildfire in October 2017.

John Pohlman (USGS), David Brankovits (USGS/WHOI) and Jake Emmert (MG) deploy acoustic devices in open water sinkhole (or cenote) prior to a 6-month long installation in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico cave

The remnants of an eroding marsh sit on a bayside beach behind Long Beach Island, New Jersey. Marsh loss and bayside erosion can be outcomes of both natural landscape evolution and human modification of coastal barrier systems.

Mokelumne River near confluence with the San Joaquin River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, CA, looking downstream, with Cordell Johnson (USGS PCMSC) and Rachel Allen (USGS PCMSC) collecting data from the R/V Fast Eddy.

Mokelumne River near confluence with the San Joaquin River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, CA, looking downstream, with Cordell Johnson (USGS PCMSC) and Rachel Allen (USGS PCMSC) collecting data from the R/V Fast Eddy.

Orthophoto (GigaPan) of the former Elwha Dam and former Lake Aldwell, on the Elwha River, Washington, compiled from ultra high-resolution images collected with a Ricoh GR camera operating at 2-second intervals, mounted on a Cessna 172 piloted by Rite Bros. Aviation and processed using Structure-from-Motion techniques.

Orthophoto (GigaPan) of the former Glines Canyon Dam and former Lake Mills, on the Elwha River, Washington, compiled from ultra high-resolution images collected with a Ricoh GR camera operating at 2-second intervals, mounted on a Cessna 172 piloted by Rite Bros. Aviation and processed using Structure-from-Motion techniques.