Unified Interior Regions
California
The Southwest Region includes California, Nevada, and Arizona. The Regional Office, headquartered in Sacramento, provides Center oversight and support, facilitates internal and external collaborations, and works to further USGS strategic science directions.
States L2 Landing Page Tabs
Three geologists and a plane
Three pioneers of USGS geological studies, in 1965, from left to right: Parke D. Snavely, Jr., Robert E. Wallace, and Thomas W. Dibblee, in front of a 1964 Cessna 182G Skylane.
Front of the William Wrigley, Jr. Company building in west Santa Cruz
Front of the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. building in 1955, now home to the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center.
Long Beach Earthquake Damage
View of John Muir School on Pacific Avenue in Long Beach, California, showing damage from the March 10, 1933 Long Beach earthquake. Photo taken 8 days after the earthquake, on March 18, 1933. Photo by W.L. Huber, USGS.
Coso Hot Springs located at Coso Volcanic Field, CA
Coso Hot Springs in Coso volanic fields, Feb 4, 1920.
San Francisco in ruins, 1906
One of the most well-known photographs by George R. Lawrence, taken May 28, 1906, about 6 weeks after the Great San Francisco earthquake which occurred on April 18. The 160-degree panorama was taken from a camera suspended from a kite 2,000 feet in the air. The view looks up Market Street with the waterfront and Union Ferry Building in the foreground.
This media
...Mount Konocti viewed from Cinder Cone, Clear Lake Volcanic Field.
Mount Konocti, the most distinct volcanic feature of the Clear Lake Volcanics as viewed to the west from Cinder Cone.
Alameda County Courthouse (Calif.) before and after 1868 Earthquake
Strong shaking during the 1868 Hayward Fault earthquake caused the second story of the Alameda County Courthouse in San Leandro to collapse (photo courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California). The inset photo shows the courthouse before the quake
Delta Smelt
Delta Smelt being held in hand
Santa Cruz Cowells Beach video camera variance image
Video camera variance image at Cowells Beach in Santa Cruz, California, looking southward. Learn more about the cameras and how we're using them to study coastal change.
...Sound Waves, Aug. 2011
The stories in the Aug. 2011 issue of Sound Waves:
https://archive.usgs.gov/archive/sites/soundwaves.usgs.gov/2011/08/
USGS Arctic Ocean Research: A Polar Ocean Acidification Study
Three-Week Expedition Images Sediments Beneath the Gulf of Alaska
Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) in the nation’s ground waters and surface waters will be the subject of papers and poster presentations by U.S. Geological Survey scientists at the American Chemical Society annual meeting, April 16-17, in San Francisco, Calif.
Scientists Locate Faults Possibly Related to Shaking From Northridge, California Eathquake (archive)
U.S. Geological Survey scientists are encouraged because they now know that they have the capability to explain the blind thrust faults of the Los Angeles region with seismic reflection methods, according to USGS researcher Dr. Rufus Catchings.
A cooperative agreement with the University of Southern California (USC) for the operation of the Southern California Earthquake Center has been renewed by the U.S. Geological Survey.
LECTURE: -- "LIVING WITH GEOLOGIC HAZARDS IN SAN MATEO COUNTY" WILL BE THE SUBJECT OF THE NEXT U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY’S FREE PUBLIC LECTURE.
"There is mounting evidence that Mars is a water-rich planet that may have experienced warmer climates, and therefore, life, in the past,"according to Michael Carr, an astrogeologist with the U.S.Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif.
LECTURE: -- "THE COLORADO RIVER IN THE GRAND CANYON" WILL BE THE SUBJECT OF THE NEXT U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY’S FREE PUBLIC LECTURE.
Hydrologists and chemists from the U.S. Geological Survey will be on Mallard Island, near Pittsburg today, Jan. 8, collecting water and sediment samples from Bay-Delta waters to determine the amount of pesticides that are being washed into the Bay by this year’s floods on Bay-Delta rivers.
The floods have crested and are beginning to recede in most places in the Pacific Northwest. Nevertheless dozens of U.S. Geological Survey personnel, who were busy over the holidays measuring the high streamflows and keeping river stage monitors operating, are still busy in the field and in their offices. Field crews have been hampered by mudslides, road closures, and extremely dangerous condition
The good news is that sea water and wave action aren’t being too rough on some sections of the beach cliffs of the San Mateo County, Calif., coast; the bad news is that slumping caused by fresh water erosion is destroying some of the beach cliffs at rates of up to two meters per year, according to scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif.
A new method of assessing the danger of ground failure due to soil liquefaction during an earthquake made its debut in San Francisco, Tuesday afternoon, December 17.
"Secrets in Stone," a video that chronicles the series of scientific discoveries in the early 1960s that led to broad acceptance of the theory of plate tectonics, will be shown for the first time on Tuesday, December 17, 1996, at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco. The premiere showing will be held at 4:30 p.m., in Room 122 of the Moscone Center.
Dr. Crofton B. Farmer of Pasadena, California, and Dr. M. Patrick McCormick of Hampton, Virginia, have received the 1996 Pecora Award, one of the top federal awards for contributions in remote sensing.