Images

Profile of newly discovered volcano-like cone in sonar record collected off southern Alaska. The cone’s summit is at about 1,000 meters water depth. Note fluid plume (blue) rising more than 700 meters upward from the summit.

The relatively new camera stations at Santa Cruz and Madeira Beach have not yet imaged many rip channels, so this is an example from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Field Research Facility in Duck, North Carolina. In this time-averaged image from video taken September 1, 2015, the dark horizontal bands perpendicular to the beach indicate rip channels.

Left: USGS research hydrologist Mark Reid (left) and USGS research geologist Kevin Schmidt collect GPS data along the Big Sur coast on September 19, 2007. Photo credit: Maiana Hanshaw, USGS (now with swisstopo).

Enlarged map of the Yakobi Sea Valley. Closeup view (upper right) shows right-lateral offset of the Yakobi Sea Valley wall by the Queen Charlotte-Fairweather fault. MCS, multichannel seismic; km, kilometers. For location, see the southeastern Alaska trackline map.

Engineering technician Tim Elfers of the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center navigates a personal watercraft (PWC) through waves offshore of central California. The PWC is equipped with sonar and GPS in order to map the nearshore seafloor.

Geology and geomorphology offshore of Fort Ross, California, showing location of the San Andreas Fault and slope failures in the fault zone.

Photo showing the complex geomorphology of the marsh landscape of the Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge/Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in coastal Alabama and Mississippi. (1) Geology—a tidal creek that at lower sea level than present served as a distributary channel of a river-delta system. (2) Hydrodynamics—wave erosion of the marsh edge.

USGS research geologist Cheryl Hapke (center) explains to National Park Service manager Mike Bilecki (right) how instruments mounted on personal watercraft will measure depths in shallow water. USGS engineering technician BJ Reynolds is beside the watercraft.

Peter Swarzenski doing fieldwork on Alaska’s Barter Island, summer 2015 

Picture shows United States Geological Survey scientist Beth Middleton and a lake in China. 

USGS scientist Lisa Robbins next to the research vessel (R/V) Atlantis, which is owned by the U.S. Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The advanced circulation (ADCIRC) model unstructured finite element mesh spans the western North Atlantic Tidal domain to the 60-degree west meridian, including the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of America.

Coastal area within the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative region for which predictions have been generated.

Conceptual diagram showing the structure of the Bayesian network used to assess potential sea-level rise impacts on the coastal landscape.

Problem statement, objectives, and alternative actions defined by Department of Interior  collaborators using structured decision making framework

 Scanning electron microscope image of gas hydrate crystals in a sediment sample. The scale is 50 micrometers (µm) or approximately 0.002 inches

Storm induced erosion of marsh shorelines can provide significant quantities of sediment to the bay altering the deposition patterns.

Inundated marsh at Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, New Jersey.

Flood tidal shoal at Barnegat Inlet, New Jersey (courtesy USGS EROS NAIP orthophotography)

Bathymetry and backscatter intensity of the sea floor of the Hudson Shelf Valley location map

Near vertical (top, middle) and low angle oblique (bottom) aerial photographs of Rodanthe, North Carolina. View looking west along the North Carolina shore. High waves and storm surge from Hurricane Joaquin eroded the beach, exposing the pilings of the homes to wave attack (green and orange arrows).