Images

New USGS deepwater tripod, called the free-ascending tripod, or FAT, suspended from a crane before being lowered into water. Some of the instruments mounted on the tripod have been labeled. 

USGS personnel adding pieces of syntactic foam (composed of glass microspheres embedded in resin) that will provide buoyancy to raise the tripod to the surface for recovery. Left to right: Jingping Xu, Hank Chezar, Kurt Rosenberger, and Peter Harkins.

Lidar data collected in 2010 and 2012 showing a change in the beach profile. Spot marked by vertical arrow was about 1 meter (3 feet) higher after two years.

High tide (left) and low tide (right) at study site in Lynch Cove, at the head of Hood Canal, Washington. Summer 2012 USGS fieldwork was made possible by Dr. Bill Portuese and his family, who graciously offered the use of their dock and beach for the USGS experiments.

Well cluster installed in June 2012 to a depth of 10 meters (33 feet) below the beach face. Photograph taken at low tide; the white PVC extensions prevented the wells from being flooded during high tide (compare with photograph of research team standing on same dock, above).

A red crab trying to crack open a seep mussel, seen during the Deepwater Canyons 2012 Expedition.

A squat lobster and small Black belly rosefish huddle near a den on a small ledge in Baltimore Canyon.

A venus flytrap anemone on the lip of a small ridge, with numerous other small animals.

Large Lophelia colonies and numerous anemones at a depth of about 1,500 feet in Mississippi Canyon. Red laser beams, projected from a remotely operated vehicle, represent a separation of 10 centimeters (about 4 inches). A western roughy is seen to the left of the structure.

USGS research team set out instrumentation for a coastal groundwater exchange study in Lynch Cove, Hood Canal, Washington. Left to right are Peter Swarzenski, Wally Brooks, Christopher G. Smith, Sandy Baldwin, Marci Marot, Cordell Johnson, and Kevin Kroeger.

Underwater photograph off Molokaʻi Hawaiʻi, showing some of the impacts of land-based pollution, such as terrestrial sediment, on coral reefs: burial by sediment, algal overgrowth, and coral bleaching.

Perspective view of seafloor offshore of Half Moon Bay, showing scarp (arrows) along the eastern strand of the San Gregorio fault zone. Rocks are notably upwarped and folded adjacent to the fault.

Figure 2 from the 2012 publication, "Arrival and Expansion of the Invasive Foraminifera Trochammina hadai Uchio in Padilla Bay, Washington," by McGann, et al. Trochammina hadai Uchio: A, dorsal view; B, edge view; C, ventral view.

A close-up of the Paramuricea polyps when open.

A massive colony of Paragorgia (bubble gum coral) with a squat lobster hiding among the polyps.

Hurricane Sandy struck the New Jersey shore October 29–31, 2012. Houses, cars, and a street in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, were covered in beach sand after the hurricane's storm tide receded

USGS hydrologist Kaitlyn Colella and a Shinnecock Nation member work together gathering oyster and bed sediment samples along Long Island, New York, coast.

Scan by the new lidar scanner at Younger Lagoon in Santa Cruz, California, on December 11, 2012. Shaded swath from left of center to lower right corresponds to swath of yellow data in image below. True colors (tans, greens, and so on) are created by combining lidar data with imagery from a high-resolution digital camera attached to the scanner.

Lidar data collected December 11, 2012 (yellow), in comparison with lidar data collected October 29, 2010 (red), showing change in beach profile. Spot marked by vertical arrow was 1.08 meters higher at time of 2012 survey than at time of 2010 survey.

USGS scientist Nancy Prouty collects samples from a CTD. A CTD is package of electronic instruments that measure conductivity, temperature, and depth of water.

The streamer is flaked out on the deck with a make shift workbench for tools.  The technical staff (Geological Survey of Canada) are sharing a lighter moment during trouble shooting and repair aboard CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent.