Images

Geologist and cataclastic shear zones in the Melozitna granite in the Ruby batholith. This granite contains abundant monazite and high levels of thorium and rare earth elements.

Frac sands used in unconventional oil and gas development.

A calcrete outcropping near Sulfur Springs Draw in Texas. This deposit dates to the Pliocene and Pleistocene, and hosts uranium-vanadate minerals.

A uranium-vanadate mineral in calcrete. This sample came from near the Sulfur Springs Draw in Texas. USGS conducted an assessment of uranium resources in this region in 2015.

Microscopic gold and lead particles surrounded by organic and phosphorus-rich material in a municipal biosolids sample (combined surface topography and atomic weight images).

A scanning electron microscope image of the newly discovered mineral finchite. The Denver Microbeam Lab provided this scan of finchite in order to help describe and identify the mineral as a new one. Finchite is a uranium mineral first observed in Martin County, Texas.

A sample of finchite, a newly discovered uranium mineral. Finchite is the yellow material on the surface of the rock. Finchite is found in the late Pleistocene sediments deposited during the Illinoian glacial stage.

USGS scientist Bradley Van Gosen examines rock layers for the newly discovered mineral finchite near Lamesa, Texas.

USGS scientist examining outcrops of strongly deformed and metamorphosed rock along Divide Mountain in the Yukon-Tanana upland of eastern Alaska

Cinnabar mine site in Idaho.

USGS geologist Richard Lease collects samples of granitic bedrock high above Blockade glacier, Neacola Mountains, Alaska.

Helicopter arriving to pick up geologists after retrieving geophysical equipment from the flanks of Redoubt Volcano, Alaska, July 2015

Frac sands courtesy of Unimin Energy Solutions.

Frac sands courtesy of Unimin Energy Solutions.

View looking south down Kanab Creek toward the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River in the distance. 

USGS Scientists Sarah Davis, Taylor Mills, and David Naftz collect soil samples near the Pinenut uranium mine. Mine features visible in the background include the gray ore stockpile at the far left, the head frame used to access the underground mine workings at mid left, and the detention pond containing all water produced on the mine site on the right.  

Preliminary map of selected minerals for a portion of the Nabesna area of interest, near Orange Hill and Bond Creek deposits in Alaska. The image, derived from HyMap imaging spectrometer data collected in July 2014, is draped on shaded relief.

The copious rocks carried by the September 2013 Colorado floodwaters pulverized and diluted non-floatable materials from the built environment on the Left Hand Canyon.

While sampling the sediments deposited by the September 2013 Colorado floods, the scientists observed that roads (Left Hand Canyon highway) and houses built on the outside bends of river meanders were particularly vulnerable to flood damages.

Charles Drost, USGS Southwest Biological Science Center, measures a many-lined skink

Greg Linder, USGS Columbia Environmental Research Center, instructs Emily Simpson, Bethel College undergraduate student, on the dissection of a pocket gopher.