Images

An earthquake along a subduction zone happens when the leading edge of the overriding plate breaks free and springs seaward, raising the sea floor and the water above it. This uplift starts a tsunami. Meanwhile, the bulge behind the leading edge collapses, thinning the plate and lowering coastal areas.

Aerial view of Assateague Island, looking north. Ocean City, Maryland, is visible in the far distance at top. Sinepuxent Bay lies between the island’s western shore and the Delmarva Peninsula to the upper left. Photograph taken in 1998 

Large-scale poster describing USGS work.

The USGS mapped western San Francisco Bay using sonar, in cooperation with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and C&C Technologies. Some parts of the Bay floor are so shallow that a large tanker or container ship could run aground at low tide and create a massive oil spill.

George Tate (right, in light baseball cap) drives a raft on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, 1992. The crane near the bow was used to deploy a small tripod holding a rotating sidescan sonar, which sat on the riverbed recording the motion of underwater sand dunes.

This historic brick Studebaker Building, originally built in 1925, was chosen as the location for the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center in the late 1980s.

An automobile lies crushed under the third story of this apartment building in the Marina District. The ground levels are no longer visible because of structural failure and sinking due to liquefaction.

Large-scale poster describing USGS work.

The USGS, in cooperation with the UK Institute of Oceanographic Sciences (IOS) and others, took images of the seafloor 200 miles around the Hawaiian Islands using GLORIA. GLORIA is a long-range sonar that gives a bird’s-eye view of the seafloor.

Susan Russell-Robinson with USGS Deputy Director Joe Cragwall at a National Archives exhibit marking the 100th anniversary of the USGS in 1979.

George Tate playfully brandishes a grappling hook in a boat in Cook Inlet, Alaska, 1978. The driver (not shown) and George are about to motor away from the research vessel Sea Sounder to drag for the large tripod dubbed the Geoprobe. The apparatus had not deployed its recovery float and line, so the scientists had to try to hook it up off the seafloor.

Map shows floods in the Aguadilla-Aguada area, northwestern Puerto Rico. The image is from USGS Hydrologic Atlas 457, created in 1972.

Three pioneers of USGS geological studies, in 1965, from left to right: Parke D. Snavely, Jr., Robert E. Wallace, and Thomas W. Dibblee, in front of a 1964 Cessna 182G Skylane.

Photograph taken in 1964 of the main part of the Chenega village site in Alaska. Pilings in the ground mark the former locations of homes swept away by tsunami waves. The schoolhouse on high ground was undamaged.

Aftermath of the 1960 Chilean tsunami in Hilo, Hawaii, where the tsunami caused 61 deaths.

In 1932, the U.S. Coast Guard commissioned the construction of a 165-foot, 1,500-horsepower ship in Bay City, Michigan. This was the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter (USCGC) Escanaba.

The Escanaba was built by Western Pipe and Steel Company in San Pedro, California, and began sailing in 1946. This 255-foot gunboat operated from its homeport in Alameda, California, until it was decommissioned in 1954. 

View of John Muir School on Pacific Avenue in Long Beach, California, showing damage from the March 10, 1933 Long Beach earthquake. Photo taken 8 days after the earthquake, on March 18, 1933. Photo by W.L. Huber, USGS.

One of the most well-known photographs by George R. Lawrence, taken May 28, 1906, about 6 weeks after the Great San Francisco earthquake which occurred on April 18. The 160-degree panorama was taken from a camera suspended from a kite 2,000 feet in the air. The view looks up Market Street with the waterfront and Union Ferry Building in the foreground.

Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), also known as The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei), by artist Katsushika Hokusai (Japanese, Tokyo (Edo) 1760–1849 Tokyo (Edo)). Dated sometime between 1829-1833.

Photo of the seafloor that shows scour marks and starfish. See details at http://nantucket.er.usgs.gov/index.php?level=picture&id=67815

Data logger and underwater sensor deployed at a mangrove coral site in Otter Creek to measure light reaching corals under the mangroves.

Dr. Christina Kellogg, USGS DISCOVRE's microbiologist, begins a dive in the Johnson-Sea-Link submersible to study deep-sea coral. The submersible can reach depths of 900 meters and has a manipulator arm and suction tool for collecting samples.