Images

Prescribed burn

Near vertical (top, middle) and low angle oblique (bottom) aerial photographs of Bear Inlet, North Carolina. View looking northwest along the North Carolina shore. High waves and storm surge from Hurricane Joaquin eroded the beaches, moving sand inland (green arrow) and reshaping the flood-tidal shoals.

Healthy Elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) near unpopulated Buck Island, U.S. Virgin Islands. Elkhorn coral is one of many important reef-building species that create 3D structure on the seafloor. Coral reef structure provides habitat for marine life and helps break up waves as they approach the coastline.

Near vertical (top, middle) and low angle oblique (bottom) aerial photographs of New Drum Inlet, Core Banks, North Carolina. View looking northwest along the North Carolina shore.

Near vertical (top, middle) and low angle oblique (bottom) aerial photographs of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. View looking northwest along the North Carolina shore. Waves and surge from Hurricane Joaquin eroded the beach, causing significant shoreline retreat and a narrower beach.

Radium Springs, Georgia, under normal flow conditions.

Earth Science reminds us that the study of Earth and its biological processes can occur anywhere—whether we realize it or not.

Two colonies of the mustard hill coral, Porites astreoides, one apparently healthy (left) and one visibly bleached (right) during a coral-bleaching event at Hen and Chickens Sanctuary Preservation Area, Plantation Key, FL, USA. When ocean temperatures were unusually warm in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in October 2015, coral ble

A diver peeks from behind a badly bleached coral in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in October 2015. Coral bleaching events caused by abnormally warm ocean temperatures continue to regularly claim the lives of coral populations around the globe. 

Photo of undercut coral taken at Hen and Chickens Reef Sanctuary Preservation Area, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary

An acoustic Doppler current profiler is being used to measure discharge at Manatee Springs, Florida.

Time-averaged image, or “timex,” created by averaging the intensity of light recorded at each spot, or “pixel,” during a video taken at Duck, North Carolina, on September 1, 2015. Blurred white zones show where waves are breaking. Light band paralleling the shore marks an offshore sandbar. Dark bands extending away from the beach indicate rip channels.

Map of monitoring locations on Lake Mattamuskeet

A slice of a piston core containing wood and plant material from Russell Key in Florida Bay, Everglades National Park, April 18, 2014. The large piece of wood is from a red mangrove. Photo: USGS

The transition between a mud flat on the interior of Bob Allen Key (Florida Bay, Everglades National Park) and the mangroves that form the islands’ protective outer berm.  These black mangroves have pneumatophores – parts of the root that function like snorkels, allowing the roots to “breathe” when water overlies the mud flat. Photo: Anna Wachnicka, FIU

A mesmerizing plume creates a paradox of light and dark, brilliant and murky. The dark water of the Suwannee River flows from the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia to the Gulf of America in Florida. The river’s inky color comes from decaying vegetation at the river’s swampy source.

Invasive Species biological science technician Michelle Collier holds an invasive black and white Tegu lizard. 

Perspective view of coastal bathymetry looking onshore, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, mapped using lidar and depicted with false-color, showing detailed submerged features, including coral reefs.

Baseline Coastal Oblique Aerial Photographs Collected from Key Largo, Florida, to the Florida/Georgia Border, September 5-6, 2014

Sediment-laden water from a tributary, where development is probably taking place, entering the clearer Chattahoochee River near Atlanta, Georgia. If preventative measures are not taken on construction sites where runoff flows into a nearby stream or creek, results like this can happen.

USGS scientist processing water-quality samples. She is surrounded by lots of equipment