Images

A bed of manganese nodules from deep offshore of the Cook Islands; photo sourced from Hein et al., 2015, taken during a Japanese research cruise in the year 2000. Nodules range from about 2 to 10 centimeters across.

This image was acquired on December 26, 2000, by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus instrument aboard NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite.

The south area of the La Honda oil field, California, was discovered during the late 1950s and produced an estimated 595,000 barrels of oil from about 12 wells, including the well in this photo.

An earthquake along a subduction zone happens when the leading edge of the overriding plate breaks free and springs seaward, raising the sea floor and the water above it. This uplift starts a tsunami. Meanwhile, the bulge behind the leading edge collapses, thinning the plate and lowering coastal areas.

Large-scale poster describing USGS work.

The USGS mapped western San Francisco Bay using sonar, in cooperation with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and C&C Technologies. Some parts of the Bay floor are so shallow that a large tanker or container ship could run aground at low tide and create a massive oil spill.

George Tate (right, in light baseball cap) drives a raft on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, 1992. The crane near the bow was used to deploy a small tripod holding a rotating sidescan sonar, which sat on the riverbed recording the motion of underwater sand dunes.

An automobile lies crushed under the third story of this apartment building in the Marina District. The ground levels are no longer visible because of structural failure and sinking due to liquefaction.

Large-scale poster describing USGS work.

The USGS, in cooperation with the UK Institute of Oceanographic Sciences (IOS) and others, took images of the seafloor 200 miles around the Hawaiian Islands using GLORIA. GLORIA is a long-range sonar that gives a bird’s-eye view of the seafloor.

Sea Beam bathymetric map of southern Escanaba Trough study area. Contour interval is 10m and is noted by color change. Locations of single- channel water-gun reflection profiles 4 to 12, cruise L1-86-NC, are shown.

Glassy, fresh pillow basalt flow at the NESCA site, northern half of Escanaba Trough.

Older, oxidized sulfide deposit colonized by sponges at SESCA site, southern half of Escanaba Trough.

Sulfide mound and talus at NESCA site, northern half of Escanaba Trough. Rectangular marker at center of photograph is 15 by 30 cm.

Photo shows the side of an actively venting massive sulfide chimney colonized by tube worms and palm worms.

Photo shows tube worms and anemones colonizing massive sulfide talus where diffuse hydrothermal venting is occurring.

Photo shows side of sulfide mound showing cluster of tube worms, anemones, and bacterial mats.

Hydrothermal deposits (primarily barite) adjacent to site of active venting. Shiny black material is possibly pyrobitumen.

Dynaphot photomicrographs of foraminifers from Escanaba Trough. A-D, Rhabdammina sp.

Sea Beam bathymetric map of Escanaba Trough from 1985. A, Northern half. B, Southern half. Contour interval is 50 m; each color change represents 100 m. Yellow indicates areas of no data.

Topographic map of the Cape Flattery region (U.S. Geological Survey Cape Flattery Quadrangle, 15-min series).

George Tate playfully brandishes a grappling hook in a boat in Cook Inlet, Alaska, 1978. The driver (not shown) and George are about to motor away from the research vessel Sea Sounder to drag for the large tripod dubbed the Geoprobe. The apparatus had not deployed its recovery float and line, so the scientists had to try to hook it up off the seafloor.

Three pioneers of USGS geological studies, in 1965, from left to right: Parke D. Snavely, Jr., Robert E. Wallace, and Thomas W. Dibblee, in front of a 1964 Cessna 182G Skylane.