Images

Department of Interior UAS pilots from left to right – Elizabeth Pendleton (USGS, Woods Hole, MA), Colin Milone (Office of Aviation Services, AK), John Vogel (USGS; Flagstaff, AZ), Sandy Brosnahan (USGS, Woods Hole, MA), Brandon Forbes (USGS; Tucson, AZ), Chris Holmquist-Johnson (USGS; Fort Collins, CO),&nb

The distribution of sediment textures within the study area. The bottom-type classification is from Barnhardt and others (1998) and is based on 16 sediment classes. The classification is based on four sediment units that include gravel (G), mud (M), rock (R), and sand (S). If the texture is greater than 90 percent, it is labeled with a single letter.

Scientist surveying the presence and behavior of birds at Pelican Island, Alabama. The CMHRP is working with personnel within the Ecosystems Mission Area on this project to identify how physical characteristics of barrier islands influence use by wintering shorebirds.

A loggerhead sea turtle, outfitted with a popoff ADL package (orange item on the turtle’s back), is released by New England Aquarium Biologist Nick Whitney.

Most underwater seismic data is collected from large research vessels; however, the shoreface environment is shallower than areas in which most seismic surveys occur. To get the information we need to assess changes in shoreface geology, we mount our seismic instruments on pontoon floats and deploy the instrument from the beach.

We mount our seismic instrument on pontoon floats with wheels. This setup is deployed from the beach and eventually towed behind our survey vessel.

Geologic sections (C-C', D-D', and E-E') illustrating the general distributions and thicknesses of seismic stratigraphic units and major unconformities in the Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket study areas.

Coastal wetland ecosystems in Jamaica Bay, New York, provide important ecosystem services along the highly urbanized Atlantic coast.

A brain coral infected with Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in April 2018.

Shaded-relief map of central California showing location of the Big Sur area (white dashed line). Red line shows the San Gregorio-Hosgri fault (SGHF) and the Big Sur Bend between Point Sur (PS) and Piedras Blancas (PB). Black lines show other faults.

Perspective view of part of the Big Sur Bend in the San Gregorio-Hosgri fault. The steep slope beside the fault results from uplift along the fault, which is part of the strike-slip fault system that forms the boundary in California between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates.

Illustration shows the cross-section of a barrier island progressing from ocean (on the right) to marsh and then lagoon (on the left). 

Contractor Babak Tehranirad works on an operational model for forecasting flooding around San Francisco Bay.

Left to right: USGS scientist Josh Logan, USGS contractor Babak Tehranirad, and USGS contractor Rae Taylor-Burns (University of California-Santa Cruz graduate student) collect beach elevation data near Moss Landing, California, with precision GPS units carried in their backpacks.

Babak Tehranirad holds a lobster that he caught while on vacation in March 2017.

RV Petrel towing subbottom profiler (yellow raft) parallel to the beach to measure the thickness of sand offshore.

A WHCMSC and WHOI team recovered six intermediate period ocean bottom seismographs from the continental slope offshore New England in Georges Bank. The instruments had been deployed for about ten months to record background, ambient seismic noise.

USGS unmanned aerial system (uas) mapping team on the beach in Dauphin Island, Alabama

Perspective view of coastal bathymetry looking onshore, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, mapped using lidar and depicted with false-color, showing detailed submerged features, including coral reefs.

USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center's research vessel R/V San Lorenzo.

Sun sets on Whiskeytown Lake with PCMSC's vessel San Lorenzo in foreground.