Images

Two red sea urchins (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) sit on the deck of the R/V Falkor. These sea urchins were collected during the #HuntingBubbles research cruise led by the USGS and Schmidt Ocean Institute, which focused on exploring and understanding methane seeps and the communities that depend on them along the Cascadia Margin.

USGS Research Marine Biologist Dr. Ilsa Kuffner holds a brain coral on board a research vessel while research on coral growth in Buck Island Reef National Monument, St. Croix, VI.

USGS researchers have been monitoring changes in a breach in the island that occurred during Hurricane Sandy (modified from  Hapke et al., 2017). 
 

The CMHRP has been conducting scientific investigations at Fire Island in order to protect natural and cultural resources.

USGS studies the growth rates of corals at a network of coral growth assessment stations throughout Buck Island National Monument in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. These data provide resource managers with information needed to understand how coral populations are doing in the park.

View of Capitola, California. Capitola is a city in Santa Cruz County, California on the coast of Monterey Bay.

On May 6, 2019, Congressman Charlie Crist (13^th district, FL) and Operations and Outreach Director Mr. Kendrick Lewis will visit the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (SPCMSC). Congressman Crist requested this visit because he is interested to learn more about the Center and to discuss needs/priorities that we may have.

The U.S. Geological Survey is conducting research to guide the recovery of the threatened Elkhorn coral, Acropora palmata, in Dry Tortugas National Park and throughout the western Atlantic.

Jessica Rodysill (Reston) and Hunter Wilcox (SPCMSC) deploying a corer in Lake Enriquillo. The scientists will use the cores to construct precipitation changes in Dominican Republic over the late Holocene (~5000 years ago to present) time period.

Cheryl Morrison and Christina Kellogg collect water from the two Niskin bottles after they were removed from the ROV post-dive.

Lauren Toth (Research Physical Scientist, SPCMSC) and collaborator Mike Colella (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission) collect measurements of reef erosion at Molasses reef off Key Largo, FL.

SPMSC scientist Lauren Toth conducts a photographic survey of Porter Patch reef off Key Largo, one of the sites that has been surveyed as part of FWRI’s Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring project since 1996.

 USGS unmanned aerial system (drone) pilot collecting aerial imagery and ground control points for the Coastal Resource Evaulation for Management Applications (CREMA) project on Dauphin Island, Alabama

Scientists at the St.

Scientists at the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center use Hydro-MEM, a two-dimensional coastal wetland model that integrates an Advanced Circulation hydrodynamic model with a Marsh Equilibrium Model to project marsh response to sea-level rise.

For more than 15 years, the USGS has actively studied natural and human changes to the shoreline, beaches, and dunes at Fire Island.

A brain coral infected with Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in April 2018.

Scientist surveying the presence and behavior of birds at Pelican Island, Alabama. The CMHRP is working with personnel within the Ecosystems Mission Area on this project to identify how physical characteristics of barrier islands influence use by wintering shorebirds.

Coastal bathymetry, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, mapped using lidar and depicted with false-color (purple is deep, orange is shallow). Land areas are depicted with satellite imagery.

East end of Fire Island, showing white sandy beaches and marshes, depicted with airborne imagery, and lidar-derived bathymetric features in the estuary behind the island, in the offshore region, and in the channel connecting the estuary to the ocean. 

In an effort spanning the Natural Hazards and Ecosystems Mission Areas, pilots from the Saint Petersburg and Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Centers collect imagery data using Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) while personnel from the Wetlands and Aquatic Research Center (WARC) conduct ground-based site surveys of Pelican Island, Alabama.