Images

A scientist dumps DNA tracer into a moulin on Wolverine Glacier to assess water flow through the glacier as part of research aimed at understanding glacier processes.

Photo shows the fossil-rich sediments of the mid-Piacenzian warm period (MPWP) that document the rapid warming and sea level rise between about 3.30 and 3.25 million years agao. The hammer is at the conformable boundary between the Rushmere (below) and Morgarts Beach (above) Members of the Yorktown Formation. 

Measuring a snow core. The layers that make up snow cores are measured to determine the density of the snow and ice.

Examples of the diversity of shells from Arctic ostracode species. There are more than 100 different species living in the Arctic Ocean. From Gemery et al., 2015, An Arctic and Subarctic ostracode database: biogeographic and paleoceanographic applications. Hydrobiologia. DOI 10.1007/s10750-015-2587-4. Images captured by Laura Gemery, USGS.

Examples of the diversity of shells from Arctic ostracode species. There are more than 100 different species living in the Arctic Ocean. From Gemery et al., 2015, An Arctic and Subarctic ostracode database: biogeographic and paleoceanographic applications. Hydrobiologia. DOI 10.1007/s10750-015-2587-4 Images Captured by Laura Gemery, USGS.

South Cascade Glacier, northwestern Washington State. South Cascade Glacier located in a north-northwest facing valley near the crest of the Cascade Range in northwest Washington state. In 1959 scientists with the USGS began collecting mass balance data on South Cascade Glacier, now one of five "benchmark glaciers" in the US.

Calving of Snow River Glacier in early September 2015, resulted in icebergs floating in Snow River Lake.

Researchers use ground penetrating radar to determine the depth of the snow on Wolverine Glacier in Alaska.

Spring fieldwork on the Benchmark Glaciers involves digging deep snow pits to measure the density profile of the surface snowpack. 

Lemon Creek Glacier is located in the high-latitude maritime region of Alaska, at the southernmost tip of the Juneau Icefield. Glacier observations began at this site in 1953.

Marine terrace soil at Wilder Ranch State Park near Santa Cruz, California. Here at the bottom of the pit, 64 inches (160cm), the colors have different mineralogy and chemistry from one another, these changes have been formed by root processes over 90,000 years of soil development.

Sperry Glacier area change, 1950 - 2014. Sperry Glacier occupies a broad, shallow cirque situated just beneath and west of the Continental Divide in the Lewis Mountain Range of Glacier National Park, Montana.

The Gulkana Glacier weather station collects data on air temperature, wind speed and direction, and cumulative precipitation.

Photo of Wolverine Glacier ice. Wolverine Glacier is in the Kenai Mountains on the coast of south-central Alaska. In 1966 scientists with the USGS began making direct measurements of surface mass balance at Wolverine Glacier, a "benchmark glacier" in Alaska.

From a hand-dug snow pit, a researcher samples cores of surface snow at Sperry Glacier to determine snow density, a measure needed to calculate glacier mass balance.  

Sunset view looking northwest from Fishermans Cove, across Ashumet Pond, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The small sticks and flags in the lake are a sampling grid. 

USGS researchers Jack McFarland and Kristen Manies taking permafrost cores to study the carbon cycle in Interior Alaska.

View looking west from Fishermans Cove, across Ashumet Pond, Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The small sticks in the lake are a small-scale sampling grid. 

One mission of the USCGC Healy is to conduct scientific research in the Arctic Ocean including cruises to recover sediment records of climate and ocean change.

USGS field crew taking a break in digging soil pits Mattole soil chronosequence.

Deployment of a gravity corer aboard USCGC Healy during an expedition to the Chukchi Sea.