Images

NASA image of Bear Lake with beautiful swirls in blue water showing mixing

This rainout shelter blcoks about 35% of the natural rainfall, allowing researchers to understand the effects of drought on plants in the southwestern United States.

Rainout shelters block about 35% of natural rainfall, allowing researchers to study the effects of drought on plants in the arid and semiarid southwestern United States. 

This rainout structure blocks about 35% of the natural rainfall, allowing researchers to study the effects of drought on plants in the southwestern United States.

Geospatial Analyses and Applications — Salt Lake City, Utah. Attribution of storm-weighted potential contaminant hazard ranks to sampling locations in the Sediment-Bound Contaminant Resiliency and Response (SCoRR) network.

USGS sign on flagstone at the Utah Water Science Center

The USGS Utah Water Science Center and the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center conducted a collaborative geophysical research effort within Lake Powell, UT-AZ to map the bathymetry of the lake and characterize shallow sediment deposition near the mouths of the San Juan and Colorado Rivers.

Dry wash in San Rafael Desert with white surface salts. White efflorescent salts form on the soil surface as water evaporates from the soil leaving the salt at the surface. 

Rangelands of the desert Southwest can be in a degraded condition and lacking perennial vegetation, which can lead to exposed soil and erosion.

USGS scientists check breach on glass-calm Great Salt Lake in surreal light.

USGS discusses grassland drought research with the National Park Service, BLM and a rancher at Canyonlands National Park.

The USGS Southwest Biological Science Center discusses rangeland conditions and our research on drought with managers and partners on the Colorado Plateau. Photo courtesy of Mike Duniway, USGS.

Field crew install a Restoration Field Trial Network garden in the rangelands of Northern Arizona.

On an average day during the fire season, multiple wildfires burn in the western United States. For example, 216 fires were active on July 7, 2017. Firefighters were battling 27 of these fires through ground and air support.

USGS scientist Robert Baskin takes a boat out on the Great Salt Lake to conduct research. 

Person taking data in a healthy dryland grassland with dark biocrusts between bunchgrasses and cacti in Utah.

Lake Powell

View from Canyonlands Research Center. 

On the Colorado Plateau, mature biocrusts are bumpy and dark-colored due to the presence of lichens, mosses, and high densities of cyanobacteria and other organisms. Disturbed biocrusts are lighter in color, looking more like the underlying sand than undisturbed ones, and are less capable of stabilizing soils or providing soil fertility.

USGS scientist Jayne Belnap examines instrumentation to measure photosynthetic rates of biocrusts.

Many human activities can be unintentionally harmful to biological crusts. The biocrusts are no match for the compressional stress caused by footprints of livestock or people or tracks from vehicles.