Images

Sunrise along the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Santa Cruz, California. Credit: Ariana Sutton-Grier, USGS.

Aerial view of the Rangaunu Harbour mangrove forest in Northland, New Zealand.

Omaha-Taniko Scientific Preserve. An extensive saltmarsh area in the Whangateau Harbour that has a rare intact vegetation sequence from mangrove forest and scrub ecosystem to saltmarsh to the Mānuka-dominated scrub wetland to Kahikatea swamp forest.

Aerial view of shrub mangrove forest in Rangaunu Harbour expanding into coast salt marsh and threatening to move into agricultural land because of sea level rise.

Research Geologist Natalie Kehrwald cuts a “cookie” from a fire-scarred tree in the southern Sangre de Cristo Mountains, New Mexico. Cookies are cross-sections of trees that provide information on the interactions between past droughts and fires. 

Two USGS scientists preparing to collect soils and measuring infiltration to quantify microbial, biogeochemical, and hydrological recovery 1 year after the 2021 Dixie Fire. They have been seasonally measuring soil recovery at 11 sites within the footprint of the Dixie Fire.

Field technician sizes up a monarch giant sequoia killed in the 2020 KNP-Complex/Castle fire (Board Camp grove, Sequoia National Park.) Unfortunately, the vast majority of giant sequoia within the grove were killed during the catastrophic 2020 Castle fire. Credit: USGS Sequoia Research Program, image provided by David Soderberg (USGS Biologist)

Confluence of the Green and Yampa Rivers (green color is the Green and yellow color is the Yampa). The color of the water is an indication of the very different streamflow patterns between the two rivers. Credit: Becky Brice, USGS

Caitlin Reynolds retrieving one of the sediment traps used by USGS to study sediment flux in the Gulf of America on board the Research Vessel (R/V) Weatherbird II (Florida Institute of Oceanography).

Eckerd College students taking water samples from a CTD-rosette on board the R/V Weatherbird

The R/V Weatherbird II docked at the Florida Institute of Oceanography at University of South Florida (USF) College of Marine Science in St. Petersburg, Florida. USGS scientists and partners at Eckerd College and USF load the vessel in preparation for a research cruise as part of a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Scientists-at-Sea program.

A 30-year partnership between the USGS and National Park Service shows how the drylands of Canyonlands National Park are responding to a hotter, drier future.

Mature giant sequoia survivorship with mottled, fire-caused understory mortality within mixed severity fire in Muir Grove, Sequoia National Park. 'Backburn' management operations were conducted to reduce fire severity before the leading edge of the KNP Complex wildfire moved into Muir Grove, reducing the likelihood of more severe fire effects. 

Ten species of planktic foraminifera from PETM sediments in southern Maryland. The scale bars measure 150 microns (0.015 cm). Each specimen is similar in size to a grain of sand. 

This Picarro L2130-i Isotope and Gas Concentration Analyzer is housed at the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center.

Paleoecologists Marie Champagne, Lysanna Anderson, and Clarke Knight work to obtain lake sediment cores from Wildcat Lake, a coastal site in Point Reyes National Seashore, California, in November 2021. (Photo Credit: Summer Praetorius, USGS)

After many days of coring, eight meters of lake sediment were obtained from Wildcat Lake by a group of scientists including Clarke Knight and Marie Champagne (left to right). (Photo Credit: Lysanna Anderson)

An established monitoring site to assess soil recovery in a chaparral ecosystem that burned in the 2020 LNU Lightning Complex Fire.

Two USGS scientists walk across the surface of Lemon Creek Glacier near the end of the melt season surrounded by green hills and barren rock.  

Researchers walk amid the glacial ice and crevasses left bare by summer melt on Lemon Creek Glacier, AK.

A researcher gazes across Wolverine Glacier and the surrounding snow-covered mountains during an early spring visit to collect mass balance data.