Images

Still-image from video camera atop the Dream Inn looks eastward over Main Beach and boardwalk in Santa Cruz, CA.

Snapshot from video camera that sits atop the Dream Inn looks eastward over Main Beach and boardwalk in Santa Cruz, California.

A series of images from various sources of shaded-relief topography show the progression of the Mud Creek landslide area, from 2010 through October 12, 2017.

Sources:

In 2017, the massive Mud Creek landslide buried a quarter-mile of the famous coastal route, California’s Highway 1, with rocks and dirt more than 65 feet deep. USGS monitors erosion along the landslide-prone cliffs of Big Sur, collecting aerial photos frequently throughout the year.

In 2017, the massive Mud Creek landslide buried a quarter-mile of the famous coastal route, California’s Highway 1, with rocks and dirt more than 65 feet deep. USGS monitors erosion along the landslide-prone cliffs of Big Sur, collecting aerial photos frequently throughout the year.

In 2017, the massive Mud Creek landslide buried a quarter-mile of the famous coastal route, California’s Highway 1, with rocks and dirt more than 65 feet deep. USGS monitors erosion along the landslide-prone cliffs of Big Sur, collecting aerial photos frequently throughout the year.

Video shot from drones yields details about changing landslide on California’s Big Sur coast

Josh Logan, a physical scientist at the USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center in Santa Cruz, California, operates an unmanned aerial system, or UAS, often called a "drone", that is equipped with a video camera.

View of the huge landslide at Mud Creek on the Big Sur coast, October 12, 2017. USGS is studying the landslide, collecting data and imagery that can be used to monitor changes. USGS provides the data to Caltrans, the California Department of Transportation, whose heavy equipment and earth movers are shown here.

In 2017, the massive Mud Creek landslide buried a quarter-mile of the famous coastal route, California’s Highway 1, with rocks and dirt more than 65 feet deep. USGS monitors erosion along the landslide-prone cliffs of Big Sur, collecting aerial photos frequently throughout the year.

USGS research geophysicist Danny Brothers (right) and colleagues examine the surface of a sediment grab sample just pulled onto the deck of the Canadian Coast Guard Ship John P. Tully. The sample was collected from the top of a mud volcano north of the border between southeast Alaska and British Columbia.

Scientists prepare to lower a piston corer off Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, to sample seafloor sediment near the Queen Charlotte-Fairweather fault. Expedition scientists are studying layers of sediment in the cores they collected to identify and determine ages of past earthquakes along the fault.

Mary McGann (left, USGS) and Rachel Lauer (University of Calgary) sample pore fluids from sediment cores collected aboard the Canadian Coast Guard Ship John P. Tully along the Queen Charlotte-Fairweather fault offshore of southeast Alaska.

USGS scientist Carol Reiss holding a hydrothermal vent sample. The poster in the background is a scientific rendering by Véronique Robigou (then at University of Washington) of a hydrothermal vent deposit with the submersible Alvin drawn to scale.

USGS geologist Carol Reiss examining hydrothermal vent sample using hand lens. Sulfide-silicate minerals precipitate from 330°C mineral laden water venting along volcanically active spreading ridges.

Skagit Bay bathymetry

Construction of the McKelvey Building, or Building 15, was completed in the mid-1990s on the USGS Western Region campus in Menlo Park, California. It houses many different USGS teams, such as Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Water Science Center, and Volcano Science Center, and features many state-of-the-art laboratories.

Aerial photograph looking north, Scott Creek Beach in distance, along the California coast near Davenport.

USGS research oceanographer Amy Gartman waits for an X-ray diffractometer to analyze samples of hydrothermal sulfide minerals.

Cross section of a seafloor crust (AKA, ferromanganese or cobalt-rich crusts) from the Marshall Islands collected at almost 2,000 meters depth. 

Flow from San Gregorio Creek in San Gregorio, California is often blocked by a natural sand levee when the flow is not strong enough to push through to the Pacific Ocean.