Images

The USGS celebrating the groundbreaking of the Herring River restoration!

Aerial image of rocky shoreline at Garrapata State Park, along the Central California coast.

Meaghan Emory and Drs. Legna Torres-Garcia and Donya Frank-Gilchrist engage with stakeholders and explore potential partnerships across Caribbean nations and territories to further enhance USGS natural hazards research at the 2023 SCDRP annual meeting in Miami, Florida.

The 2023 annual report of the U.S. Geological Survey Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center highlights accomplishments of 2023, includes a list of 2023 publications, and summarizes the work of the center, as well as the work of each of its science groups.

As sea levels rise, salt water extends further up tidal rivers. As sea-level rise accelerates, vegetation transitions are increasingly observed and USGS scientists are busy assessing those changes. USGS scientists take soil cores in the marsh. 

USGS scientists collect core samples from marsh to explore the drives of wetland accretion in the face of rising seas and human impacts impact the evolution on salt marshes.

Nautilus dive on the Mona Rift western slope, off the coast of Puerto Rico.

A recent study from the U.S. Geological Survey offers a workflow for generating virtual maps of the deep seafloor from archived exploration dives. This work can help advance exploration of the deep-sea frontier and extends into other fields. 

(Top): Map of dives labeled and shown in red and orange located near the Mona Rift, northwest of Puerto Rico. Contours show depths in meters at 500 m intervals. Square indicates location of dive. Bathymetry from Andrews et al. Yellow curve denotes landslide tsunami source of Lopéz-Venegas et al.

USGS scientists collect core samples from marsh to explore the drives of wetland accretion in the face of rising seas and human impacts impact the evolution on salt marshes.

Nautilus dive on the Mona Rift western slope, off the coast of Puerto Rico.

A collage of images depicts shoreline habitat and wildlife that use the Salton Sea area in southern California.

Video footage of USGS Research Geologist Patrick Barnard in the field, from the short film "Our Beautiful Planet - Saving Our Shores"

A polar bear walking along the Beaufort Sea coast with storm waves breaking behind it, filmed during fieldwork at Barter Island, Alaska.

 A photo collage shows examples of coastal changes at the mouths of small rivers of the world resulting from contributions of new sediment. Imagery from Google Earth.

Research Physical Scientist Donya Frank-Gilchrist visited three classes at Lakeview Fundamental Elementary School for the 2022 Great American Teach-In to discuss wave dynamics, extreme storms, and how these processes alter coastal ecosystems.

A map showing study sites at West Maui, Hawai'i, where passive samplers were deployed to detect groundwater contaminants such as pesticides, pharmaceutical compounds, and personal care products that can harm coral reefs.

Photo of a passive-sampling semipermeable membrane device deployed on a coral reef in West Maui, Hawai'i, to detect organic compounds carried by groundwater discharge.

Geomorphically diverse settings that are experiencing climate-change impacts or are expected to in the coming decades (from upper left to lower right: eroding permafrost coast, river channel, drylands, cryosphere, steep hillslopes, and a recently burned region; photographs by U.S. Geological Survey).

An animation showing tectonic faults across the Eastern Pacific Ocean from space. The San Andreas fault in California is shown in green, and the Cascadia Subduction Zone north of it is shown in yellow. The animation ends at the location of Queen Charlotte-Fairweather fault (in yellow), displaying the latest 30-meter terrain model.

A computed-generated image showing the bathymetry of the Queen Charlotte Fault and the elevation of mountains in the nearshore area, using bathymetry and lidar data.