Images

Geomorphically diverse settings that are experiencing climate-change impacts or are expected to in the coming decades (from upper left to lower right: eroding permafrost coast, river channel, drylands, cryosphere, steep hillslopes, and a recently burned region; photographs by U.S. Geological Survey).

An animation showing tectonic faults across the Eastern Pacific Ocean from space. The San Andreas fault in California is shown in green, and the Cascadia Subduction Zone north of it is shown in yellow. The animation ends at the location of Queen Charlotte-Fairweather fault (in yellow), displaying the latest 30-meter terrain model.

A computed-generated image showing the bathymetry of the Queen Charlotte Fault and the elevation of mountains in the nearshore area, using bathymetry and lidar data.

Our Nation’s coastlines are almost 100,000 miles long. These extensive coastal areas stretch from Maine’s Atlantic shores in the northeast, south along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and insular areas in the Caribbean.

A diagram that compares hand-digitization versus human-in-the-loop image segmentation workflows. The image (a) is the first in data set F, captured by Landsat 8 on 15 February 2015. The hand-drawn polygons (b) are rasterized to create a label image (c). Subplots (d) and (e) show details from the two regions identified in (c).

A microscopic photo of the invasive foraminifer Trochammina hadai with a U.S. penny for scale. Native to Asia, T. hadai arrived to the U.S. West Coast in the 1980s and has displaced native foraminifers.

A map of the United States showing the regions and river basins that formed the focus groups of the study titled "Stakeholder Engagement to Guide Decision-Relevant Water Data Delivery".

Cover image for Cascadia Subduction Zone coring video, depicting researchers labeling a sediment core aboard a research vessel.

Dan Powers, aboard the Bold Horizon, prepares to deploy a piston core over the Cascadia Subduction Zone, off the northern California coast.

Jason Padgett and Pete Dal Ferro deploy a piston core from the aft deck of the M/V Bold Horizon in rough seas.

On the M/V Bold Horizon, Pete Dal Ferro and Jason Padgett deploy the piston core at sunset. 

Pete Dal Ferro and Chief Scientist Jenna Hill deploy a chirp sub-bottom profiler from the starboard deck of the M/V Bold Horizon.

On a whiteboard on the R/V Bold Horizon, researchers taped a vertical map showing the length of the Cascadia Subduction Zone in bathymetric detail. Many data gaps were filled by the cores collected during the research expedition.

The M/V Bold Horizon, operated by Eclipse Group, Inc., was contracted by the USGS to support the collection of piston cores and geophysical survey data along the Cascadia margin.  

Research command center on the vessel with live feed of the stern and the ship’s position projected on a bathymetric map.

George Snyder aboard the R/V Bold Horizon sits at the research command center, with monitors displaying the ship's aft deck and a bathymetric map of the seafloor

Sunset with the jumbo piston core on its track system on the aft deck of the M/V Bold Horizon.

USGS Coastal Science

The USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program is the only federal science program focused on the geology and processes of coastal and marine landscapes.

USGS Ocean Science

The USGS Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program is the only federal science program focused on the geology and processes of coastal and marine landscapes.

A virtual “flight” over seafloor features in Southern California as if the water has been drained away. The flight travels around the features Footprint and Piggy Bank, just south of the northern Channel Islands in southern California.

A building lifted from its foundation by floodwater from Extratropical Typhoon Merbok is trapped under a bridge in Nome, Alaska.