Images

Chattooga River, Middle Gorge, Wild and Scenic River, Jackson County, North Carolina

USGS monitors the growth rates of the threatened Elkhorn Coral (Acropora palmata) at Dry Tortugas National Park (pictured) and throughout the Florida Keys, U.S.A.

This single-celled freshwater algae wasa collected as part of the first-ever study of the green algae family called desmids in Florida’s Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, in the northern Everglades. USGS biologist Barry H.

To collect, identify and document these single-celled algae called desmids, USGS biologist Barry H. Rosen has traveled by airboat into the interior of Florida’s Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, where decaying marsh grasses created a mosaic of peat soils and the soft, slightly acidic water where desmids grow.

Instrument package mounted to the seaward slope of a coral reef off southwestern Puerto Rico.

This is the first of two microscopic images of potentially toxic cyanobacteria, Microcystis aeruginosa.  In both images, the cyanobacteria have been exposed to a green stain.

Image 1: Microcystis aeruginosa in freshwater. The green stain doesn’t enter the cells, which show up in red.

This is the second of two microscopic images of potentially toxic cyanobacteria, Microcystis aeruginosa.  In both images, the cyanobacteria have been exposed to a green stain.

“Variance” image produced from video shot at Madeira Beach, Florida, on June 20, 2017. The more the light intensity changes at a given spot, or “pixel,” during the video, the brighter the value assigned to that pixel. Motion tends to produce changes in light intensity. Note bright bands parallel to shore where waves were breaking.

Snapshot, or first frame of from a 17-minute video shot on June 20, 2017, in Madeira Beach, Florida.

Time-averaged image, or “timex,” created by averaging the intensity of light recorded at each spot, or “pixel,” during a 17-minute video taken at Madeira Beach, Florida, on June 20, 2017. Blurred white bands show where waves are breaking. Offshore band shows location of a sand bar.

Photograph taken June 7, 2016, one day after Tropical Storm Colin, on Sunset Beach in the town of St. Pete Beach, Florida. Storm waves eroded the beach and dune, producing a cliff-like feature called a beach scarp.

Photograph taken during Tropical Storm Colin, June 6, 2016, on Sunset Beach in the town of St. Pete Beach, Florida.

A wildfire ignited by lightning in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge on April 6, 2017, is persisting into May. Hot, dry weather and extremely dry fuels are making the fire difficult to contain. As of May 22, the blaze, also called the West Mims Fire, had burned 152,478 acres.

Some single-celled green algae in the desmid family are symmetrical, with two halves joined by a bridge containing the cell’s nucleus. USGS biologist Barry H. Rosen and colleagues have been sampling desmids in Florida’s Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge for more than a year.

Mineral origin: Hallman Beam Mine, Cherryville, NC
Primary mineral commodity: Lithium
Uses: batteries for cell phones, laptops, and electric and hybrid vehicles

The sailfin catfish is one of 13 species of nonnative fish that biologists discovered during the Fish Slam in Big Cypress National Preserve, March 23, 2017.

The pike killifish, native to Mexico and Central America, was one of 13 nonnative fish species that biologists discovered during the two-day Fish Slam in Big Cypress National Preserve, March 22 and 23, 2017.

USGS scientists recently collected peat and lake core samples from the swamp to help reconstruct natural, environmental conditions over the past 12,000 years. 

Centuries of ditching, draining and harvesting resources have greatly altered the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia.

The desmid family of single-celled green algae are never found in abundance, says USGS biologist Barry Rosen. They inhabit the soft, slightly acidic water of wetlands that depend on rainwater, like Florida’s Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. They don’t “bloom” en masse, but their presence is an indicator of good water quality.

JJ Thordsen (USGS) and a wireline operator retrieving downhole vacuum sampler from a characterization well near a CO2 injection well at Citronelle oil field, Alabama.