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
Coastal cliffs near Fort Funston in 2002
Photograph of a coastal cliff where a large landslide occurred between 2002 and 2010. This photo, taken in 2002, shows the cliff before the landslide.
PubTalk 9/2002 — Healing the Redwood Creek Watershed
Successes and Failures in a Large-scale Watershed Restoration Program
by Mary Ann Madej, Geologist
- Can we undo the effects of decades of logging and road-building on salmon habitat and redwood forest?
- The Redwood Creek restoration program in California--one of the Nation.s largest and longest-running watershed
PubTalk 8/2002 — Revealing the Hidden World Beneath Monterey Bay
Explore the diverse features on and below the sea floor in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary
by Steve Eittreim, Marine Geologist
- See---
- Drowned bedrock pinnacles that provide shelter for rockfish
- Earthquake faults that slice through the sea floor
- New, highly detailed views of the
PubTalk 7/2002 — Beyond the Golden Gate
Oceanography, Geology, Biology, and Environmental Issues In The Gulf of the Farallones
by Herman A. Karl, Marine Geologist, and Edward Ueber, Director, Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary
- Learn about the complex marine geology offshore from the San Francisco Bay region
- Hear the story of the 47,000
PubTalk 6/2002 — Finding Elusive Earthquake Faults
New Mapping Techniques Reveal Potential Seismic Sources Beneath Seattle
By Richard J. Blakely, Geophysicist and Ralph A. Haugerud, Geologist
- Geophysical methods reveal "the landscape beneath the landscape"
- Why does the Seattle Fault exist, and why is it so hard to locate and map?
- LIDAR imagery can
PubTalk 3/2002 — Losing the Race for Survival?
The catastrophic decline of the desert tortoise in California
Kristin H. Berry, Desert Ecologist
- Learn about the unique social behavior and fragile ecology of the desert tortoise, some of whose populations have declined by 70-90% in the past 20 years
- Why is this fabled creature sometimes referred to as the "Methuselah
Irrigation ditch alongside an agricultural field in California's Central Valley
Irrigation systems in Central California Valley Ecoregion: Single-field irrigation ditch.
Grasslands and agricultural fields, with housing development on the hills beyond.
Conversions of grassland/shrubland and agriculture to developed land were two common land-cover changes in Southern and Central California Chaparral and Oak Woodlands Ecoregion.
Gate on a stream in the Sierra Nevada mountains
water gate on sierra nevada stream
USGS Scientists - Lake Tahoe
USGS Scientists - Lake Tahoe
Sea Otter Capture and Tagging at Sunrise
USGS marine biologists set sail on a crisp September morning to capture and tag wild sea otters to monitor the health of this threatened species.
Map of study area, Yucca Valley, California.
Map of study area, Yucca Valley, California.
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.