Images

Boreal toad (Bufo boreas) mating ball, Bridger-Teton National Forest, Wyoming.

This is a false-color-composite satellite image, Great Salt Lake, Sept 1999. Vegetation appears red.

The kivas, which were unexcavated by Nordenskiöld, are now exposed. Fewkes did considerable repair of the tower, kivas, and other structures when he excavated the ruin in 1909. Paths for visitors have been added to facilitate access. (Bill Howard).

This is a false-colored-composite satellite image of the Great Salt Lake, taken in Sept, 1987. Vegetation appears red.

This is a false-colored-composite satellite image of Great Salt Lake, Sept 1972. The vegetation appears red.

Rockslide damage to the Golden Gate area near Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, as a result of the 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake.

Sapphire Pool, in the Upper Geyser Basin, erupting after the 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake.

Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado - 1891

Old Faithful Geyser in Upper Geyser Basin. 1878(?). Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories (Hayden Survey).

Clarence King in camp, Salt Lake City, Utah. United StatesGeological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel (King Survey). 1868. Plate 96: Clarence King in camp, near Salt Lake City, Utah. October 1868.
(Photo by T.H. O'Sullivan.) 

Elk congregate on the Camp Creek Feed Ground in northwestern Wyoming.

Sunset as seen through the smoke of a prescribed burn in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico. The burn was conducted to restore fire as an ecosystem process and reduce hazardous tree densities and fuel loads due to more than 100 years of fire suppression. Foreground trees (Douglas-fir and aspen) were killed during the Cerro Grande fire in 2000.

Elk congregate on the Camp Creek Feed Ground in northwestern Wyoming.

USGS scientist Craig D. Allen observes the results of the extensive, tree-killing fire that consumed almost all above-ground biomass in this part of the Las Conchas Fire burn area in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico. Photo taken in late August 2011, two months post-fire.

The Colorado Plateau lies in the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States: western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, southeastern and eastern Utah, and northern Arizona. Most of the area is drained by the Colorado River and its main tributaries.

A section of the Upper Green River Valley in western Wyoming, just south of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, showing different ecosystems (such as forests, wetlands, and aquatic habitats) whose capacities for carbon storage and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions will be assessed by the USGS.

Maroon Lake located in Colorado

USGS researcher Craig Allen stands on the edge of Mesa Alta, amid diverse forest and woodland in the uplands of northern New Mexico; note some recently dead ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir in the field of view. Forest drought stress is strongly correlated with tree mortality from poor growth, bark beetle outbreaks, and high-severity fire.