Images

Low dunes near Cape Canaveral launch pads 39A and 39B often overwash during storm events, transporting sand landward. Critical infrastructure may be buried or flooded. In addition, significant landward transport of sand may lead to extensive shoreline erosion.

Time series of the coral reef at Grecian Rocks (Key Largo, FL) illustrating an example of the dramatic decline in live coral on Florida Keys reefs in recent decades. From Shinn and Kuffner (2017).

A USGS intern preparing to examine a black carp captured from the wild. This fish and others were examined for various aspects of their life history, including age, the environments in which they have lived and whether they were naturally reproduced. Credit: USGS.

Estimated and measured ocean depths (bathymetry) from Madeira Beach, Florida. Each panel shows same geographic area. m = meters. Left: Snapshot transformed from original oblique camera view to overhead “map” view. Middle: Bathymetry estimated by applying cBathy algorithm to July 2017 video imagery. Right: Bathymetry measured with sonar in February 2017.

Bill Schulz, USGS Research Geologist, takes photographs of Puerto Rican hillsides from a U.S. Army helicopter to document landslides caused by Hurricane Maria.

The CMHRP is testing the calcification rates of different genetic strains of threatened Elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) to advise local and Federal agencies engaged in coral reef restoration.

It looks like a holiday ornament, but this lovely object is a single-celled freshwater alga from the desmid family, found in the marshes of Florida’s Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. USGS biologist Barry Rosen photographed it at 200x magnification using ultraviolent light and a fluorescence microscope.

Hurricane Irma crossed the Florida Keys the morning of September 10, 2017, as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 130 miles per hour. Besides damage done to structures on the islands, the storm also stirred the waters.

That photo is of Atlantic Avenue in Garden City, South Carolina on September 11.

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.

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.

“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.

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.