Photo Roundup: July-October 2023

By Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program October 27, 2023

A selection of coastal and ocean videos and photographs from across the USGS.

A bleached white Elkhorn coral in Dry Tortugas National Park has died — Shown here is a colony of the threatened Elkhorn coral, *Acropora palmata*, in Dry Tortugas National Park that has become "bleached," that is, lost all its algal symbionts (also called zooxanthellae) because of the summer 2023 ocean-heat wave. These symbiotic algae that normally give the coral its color and are responsible for the coral’s nutritional wellbeing. Corals that experience bleaching can recover if ocean temperatures cool off, but after being bleached for about eight weeks, they will start to starve and die.

Bleached Elkhorn coral in Dry Tortugas National Park

A team from the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center and the National Park Service conducted emergency fieldwork to protect corals during the ongoing Florida coral-bleaching event.

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Four people standing in parking lot of sandy vegetated beach smiling for a photo — USGS scientists from the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center (WHCMSC) also installed pressure sensors at four sites along the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, including Sandwich Marsh tidal creek in Sandwich, Head of the Meadow Beach in Truro, Marconi Beach in Wellfleet, and Nauset Light Beach in Eastham to measure storm surge and flooding during Hurricane Lee. This fieldwork was coordinated with the Town of Sandwich and the National Park Service, Cape Cod National Seashore.

Hurricane Lee Coastal Response

In preparation for Hurricane Lee, scientists at the USGS deployed sensors and surveyed the U.S. Northeast coast to monitor the impacts of the storm. Monitoring hurricane impacts helps us better understand how coastal landscapes change in response to storms and allows us to validate models that forecast the dynamics of coastal storm impacts.

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Science of Surfing

Join USGS Research Geologist and lifelong surfer Jon Warrick at the Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center Santa Cruz as he discusses how coastal and ocean geoscience contributes to a better understanding of how waves form and behave as they approach the shore—critical information with a broad range of applications, not least of which is surfing!

August 2023 Bering Land Bridge Expedition

USGS staff hold a sediment core aboard the Bering Land Bridge Expedition

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USGS staff hold a sediment core collected during the Bering Land Bridge Expedition in August 2023.

Scientists collecting sediment cores on the Bering Land Bridge Expedition

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Scientists aboard the R/V Sikuliaq collecting sediment cores on the Bering Land Bridge Expedition.