Images

 An instrumented bottom lander is deployed south of Martha's Vineyard, MA in 2014 as part of the “Bottom Stress and the Generation of Vertical Vorticity Over the Inner Shelf” project.

Deployment of an instrumented quadrapod off Martha’s Vineyard, November 2014.

PCMSC scientists maneuver the camera sled for deployment off R/V Parke Snavely in Monterey Bay. They will navigate the camera sled just above the seafloor to get a close-up view. Video, photographs, and real-time observations of seafloor geology and biological cover help develop and verify the maps created from sonar data.

USGS Pacific Ocastal and Marine Science Center's research vessel R/V Parke Snavely motors into Santa Cruz Harbor. The lighthouse, also known as the Santa Cruz Breakwater Lighthouse, was remodeled and renamed the Walton Lighthouse on June 9, 2002.

Jenny White driving the USGS research vessel (R/V) Parke Snavely in November 2014 near the entrance to the Santa Cruz Harbor in Santa Cruz, California.

USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center's research vessel Parke Snavely motors slowly up into the Santa Cruz Yacht Harbor where she docks.

View looks down from a bridge as USGS research vessel R/V Parke Snavely passes beneath.

The USGS research vessel, R/V Parke Snavely, passes under a bridge near the Santa Cruz Harbor where she docks. Snavely is owned and operated by the USGS Pacific Coastal and Mairne Science Center in Santa Cruz, California.

Photograph shows a USGS scientist navigating an all-terrain vehicle equipped with GPS, collecting topographic data on Rio Del Mar State Beach in Aptos, California. Gathering this type of information helps USGS scientists to document the changes in beach and nearshore morphology (or form and structure), caused by seasonal variations and storms.

A USGS scientist guides a personal watercraft toward Seabright Beach near the Santa Cruz Harbor entrance during bathymetric surveys.

Panoramic view from the cliffs above the San Lorenzo River and east of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Main Beach. Santa Cruz municipal pier and other buildings are visible in the background.

USGS researchers can study beach recovery by collecting repeat elevation profiles at Fire Island, NY.

USGS scientist Jackson Currie deploys a chirp sub-bottom profiler (in the center) from research vessel Parke Snavely. The chirp is attached to pontoons to keep the equipment from running aground in the shallow waters of San Pablo Bay, California.

Cores can contain sediment units deposited in different environmental settings. Core photos and X-rays illuminate how sediment units can have contrasting color and density.  

Scientists recover the Benthic OBservation camera Sled, or “BOB Sled,” onto the research vessel Parke Snavely

A colony of the soft coral known as the "bent sea rod" stands bleached on a reef off of Islamorada, Florida. Hard and soft corals are presently bleaching- losing their symbiotic algae – all over the coral reefs of the Florida Keys due to unusually warm ocean temperatures this summer.

No, that is not a mound of snow sitting on a coral reef – it is a colony of bleached "brain coral" on a reef off of Islamorada, Florida. Hard and soft corals are presently bleaching- losing their symbiotic algae – all over the coral reefs of the Florida Keys due to unusually warm ocean temperatures this summer.

Colonies of “blade fire coral” that have lost their symbiotic algae, or “bleached,” on a reef off of Islamorada, Florida. Hard and soft corals are presently bleaching- losing their symbiotic algae – all over the coral reefs of the Florida Keys due to unusually warm ocean temperatures this summer.

Photograph from a mounted time-lapse camera looking eastward along Barter Island’s north shore document how the coastal bluffs and beach changed during a single summer. The photograph shows a late-summer extreme storm with waves crashing into the bluff (September 3, 2014).

Seismic Lab aboard R/V Marcus G. Langseth

Timeline of past drilling activities conducted by countries, private sector firms, government agencies, and academe that have helped to refine global gas hydrate estimates and possible future drilling and production testing