Images

Mangrove forest at high tide, on the southern edge of the island of Cù Lao Dung and situated in the lower Mekong Delta, Vietnam.

Neil Ganju prepares to anchor the work boat at a site in Chincoteague Bay, Maryland.

Reflectors are placed throughout a lidar scan area to help reference where the lidar points are in space. Andrew Stevens, USGS, surveys Capitola Beach, walks past a reflector mounted on a tall, yellow tripod in front of the light blue building.

Knowing how much sand is removed and returned by big storm events can help show how waterfronts, like this one in Capitola, change with time.

USGS geologist Bruce Richmond prepares to deploy a pipe dredge that will be dragged along the seabed to collect sediment.

Josh Logan (USGS PCMSC) surveys position and elevation of instrumentation to measure water level and suspended-sediment concentration in the marsh at China Camp State Park in Marin County CA, adjacent to San Pablo Bay (northern San Francisco Bay).

Fire Island Lighthouse at Fire Island National Seashore

Since Hurricane Sandy, we have developed techniques to monitor short-term changes to the upper beach where both storm impacts and subsequent beach recovery are easily observed and measured.

A flow tripod (taller, right) and sonar tripod (smaller, left) at the dock before being loaded onto a ship and taken to a site off Fire Island for deployment.

USGS researcher drills an instrument mount into a reef flat on Roi-Namur Island, Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands, in the Pacific Ocean. Photo by USGS.

Locations of the 97 beaches and barrier islands where our partners used the iPlover app to collect and record information on landcover characteristics at piping plover nesting locations during the breeding seasons of 2014-2016.

Inundated marsh at Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, New Jersey.

Tidepool scenes of vibrantly colored sea stars could become a rarity as the Sea Star Wasting Disease spreads.

Map of the four ecoregions that make up the polar bear's range, plus a depiction of seasonal patterns of ice motion and distribution.

USGS scientist Tim Elfers conducts a bathymetric (depth) survey from a personal watercraft with onboard GPS and echo sounder equipment, in Santa Cruz, California.

Photograph shows a USGS ATV equipped with GPS, ready to collect topographic data on Seacliff Beach in Aptos, California.

R/V Marcus G. Langseth entering NY Harbor

Example of a high-resolution seismic-reflection profile collected by the USGS offshore of Point Sal. The profile shows a cross-section of the earth's crust down to about 240 meters. The dashed red lines show the Hosgri Fault Zone, part of a strike-slip fault system that extends for about 400 kilometers along the California coast from Point Arguello to Bolinas.

Example of a deep-penetration multichannel seismic-reflection profile collected offshore of San Mateo County, from the USGS National Archive of Marine Seismic Surveys (NAMSS). The profile shows a cross-section of the earth's crust from the surface down to a depth of about 3 kilometers.

A USGS researcher measures water and sediment movement at Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, New Jersey.

Jenny driving R/V Parke Snavely from the rear of the vessel in order to deploy an underwater towed camera sled.