Images

USGS Education paper models collection includes dinosaurs and other fossils, and geologic processes like volcanoes and sand dune formation.

Both Powell’s crew and this year’s modern expedition camped along the river with views of cottonwood galleries. 

USGS scientists collected the adult life stage of emerging aquatic insects each evening of the recent Sesquicentennial Colorado River Exploring Expedition.

The GeoGirls visit a volcano monitoring station on the east side of Mount St. Helens, finding out how scientists use different monitoring methods (seismic, GPS, tiltmeter) to understand more about the volcano.

The GeoGirls hike the Pumice Plain at Mount St. Helens, examining lava outcrops and volcanic sediment.

GeoGirls hike to Willow Creek, on Mount St. Helens’ Pumice Plain, to learn more about the ecology of the blast zone and how the area has recovered since the catastrophic May 18, 1980, eruption. Here, they look at stream characteristics and how it has influenced the return of life to the area.

GeoGirls 2019 group photo, with Mount St. Helens in the background.

The GeoGirls create field drawings of 1980 pyroclastic flow deposits on Mount St. Helens’ Pumice Plain.

GeoGirls venture into Ape Cave, a 2,000-year-old lava tube on the south flank of Mount St. Helens, as they learn about Mount St. Helens’ eruptive history and lava flows.

GeoGirls venture into Ape Cave, a 2,000-year-old lava tube on the south flank of Mount St. Helens, as they learn about Mount St. Helens’ eruptive history and lava flows.

Conifers, incluing ponderosa pines, can be seen along the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

This image from a viewpoint at Dead Horse State Park in Utah shows horizontal Mesozoic sedimentary rocks characteristic of the Colorado Plateau. The Colorado River can be seen from this vantage point and this state park is located between Canyonlands National Park to the southwest and Arches National Park to the northeast.

Delicate Arch in Arches National Park, Utah. https://www.usgs.gov/nationalparks Photo by Annie Scott, USGS

USGS personnel are taking part in this year’s modern expedition that follows Powell’s 1869 journey; they are using 18-foot, inflatable, self-bailing rafts with rigging.

Observations and measurements may now be made by attaching imaging and LIDAR sensors to unmanned aerial vehicles; pictured is a drone being used by the modern-day expedition to document their journey

Photo of the scree sign with sponsors, U of Wyoming and USGS.

The Powell 150 expedition prepares to launch from Green River, Wyoming, on May 24, 2019. A John Wesley Powell impersonator poses with the group to send them off on their ~1000 mile journey.

The Edith (left), in Grand Canyon National Park’s historic river boat collection, is an example of a wooden river boat, though it was made from several decades after Powell’s expedition.  Brothers Emery and Ellsworth Kolb paddled it down the Colorado River in 1911-12.

Grand Canyon National Park from Powell Point on the South Rim. Photo taken during a ceremony commemorating the 150th anniversary of the John Wesley Powell expedition. 

In 1938, after a brush fire, a rancher found remnants of the Nellie Powell, a boat from Powell’s second expedition in 1871, which had been left at Lees Ferry.  Grand Canyon National Park now stores this piece in its collections. (Annie Scott/USGS)

Visitors on the trail, Mt. St. Helens in the background