Images

A Tufted Puffin flies over the Gull Island breeding colony in Kachemak Bay, Alaska.

A Tufted Puffin carrying a bill load of capelin back to its chick on Gull Island, in Kachemak Bay, Alaska. Capelin are an important, energy rich forage fish for many marine predators.

Staff from the USGS Alaska Science Center and Volcano Science Center met with a group of high school students on August 3, 2022, in Anchorage who are participating in the 2022 Brown Environmental Leadership Lab. The students traveled throughout southcentral Alaska with a team of instructors to learn ab

Staff from the USGS Alaska Science Center and Volcano Science Center met with a group of high school students on August 3, 2022, in Anchorage who are participating in the 2022 Brown Environmental Leadership Lab. The students traveled throughout southcentral Alaska with a team of instructors to learn ab

Map of orange stream observations across Arctic Inventory and Monitoring Network (ARCN) parks in northern Alaska.

Iron seep on the North fork of the Agashashok River, Noatak National Park and Preserve, Alaska. Recent observations from Arctic Alaska indicate that waters draining permafrost landscapes may be susceptible to iron and carbon mobilization following thaw.

This is the Jack Hills Conglomerate from Western Australia, which yielded the oldest known zircon grains on Earth at about 4.4 billion years old. 

USGS scientists George Case, Garth Graham, Anne McCafferty, and Josh Coyan visited Australia while participating in a Critical Minerals Mapping Initiative (CMMI) field trip.  The CMMI is a collaborative effort between the USGS, Geological Survey of Canada, and Geoscience Australia to conduct research on mineral systems that contain critical commodities.

Scientists use the SHRIMP or sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe to measure the ration of lead to uranium (Pb/U) in order to calculate the age of the mineral grain.

Setting up fuel transects within an archaeological site at Sequoia National Park to understand potential future fire behavior and how it could affect artifacts within the site. Pictured: Grant Snitker (foreground) and Alex Fetteroff (background), New Mexico Consortium. Copyright: Photo by Grant Snitker, New Mexico Consortium. 

Using terrestrial LiDAR to characterize fuels within an archaeological site at Sequoia National Park site to understand potential future fire behavior and its effects on artifacts. Copyright: Photo by Grant Snitker, New Mexico Consortium. 

A precontact rockshelter and associated artifacts impacted by the combustion of heavy fuels during the KNP Complex Fire, California. Copyright: photo by Grant Snitker, New Mexico Consortium. 

Historic cans from a refuse pile that were scorched by the combustion of nearby fuels during the Caldor Fire, California. Copyright: photo taken by Grant Snitker, New Mexico Consortium. 

A pair of Tufted Puffins stand above their burrows on the Gull Island breeding colony in Kachemak Bay, Alaska.

A pair of Horned Puffins on the Gull Island breeding colony in Kachemak Bay, Alaska.

A pacific capelin (Mallotus villosus) from the Beaufort Sea, Alaska. This study will evaluate the nearshore marine feeding areas of breeding adult red-throated loons and assess the response of loon reproductive success and nutritional content of nearshore fish communities.

A juvenile Dolly Varden (Salvelinus malma) from the Beaufort Sea, Alaska, during the first summer at sea following freshwater rearing. Dolly Varden return to freshwater overwinter areas each winter because freshwater temperatures are warmer.

Vanessa von Biela (USGS-ASC) deploys a CTD to measure conductivity, temperature, and density of seawater in the Beaufort Sea, Alaska. 

Juvenile bar-tailed godwit B4 with a solar-powered satellite tag near Nome, Alaska. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute, U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducted a study to track the migration of juvenile (hatch year) bar-tailed godwits from breeding sites near Nome, Alaska.

USGS collaborator Jesse Conklin (Max Planck Institute) tracks juvenile Bar-tailed Godwits near Nome, Alaska. Researchers tracked birds locally using 0.5-gram VHF radios as part of a study to understand the growth and survival of godwit chicks. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute, U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S.

Juvenile bar-tailed godwit "B6" on the Seward Peninsula near Nome, Alaska. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute, U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducted a study to track the migration of juvenile (hatch year) bar-tailed godwits from breeding sites near Nome, Alaska.