Images

USGS samples water within wetlands to understand which environmental drivers impact carbon cycle and sediment accretion. Here USGS staff (Jennifer O'Keefe Suttles) pumps water from at Phragmites wetland, Mashpee, MA, to analyze at the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center Environmental Geochemistry lab.

WHOI/MIT PhD. Student, Sheron Luk, analyses sediment carbon on an Elemental Analyzer at Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center.

The USGS will be using an autonomous surf vehicle, built by Peter Traykovski of WHOI, to map the bathymetry of the Pea Island DUNEX Experiment Site. 

The autonomous surf vehicle, built and controlled remotely  by Peter Traykovski of WHOI, is used to map the bathymetry of the Pea Island DUNEX Experiment Site. 

A view of a salt marsh pond on the left, and a tidal creek on the right at Plum Island, Massachusetts.

Robert Scharping, a post-doctoral fellow jointly appointed by the USGS and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) measures water chemistry 40’ underwater and underground in Double Keyhole Cave near the coastline of Tampa Bay Florida.

The study used 12-foot-tall static chambers to enclose Phragmites vegetation and assess how much methane and carbon dioxide move in and out of the ecosystem across the salinity gradient.

Wetlands play a key role in the coastal carbon cycle, removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during photosynthesis and releasing carbon dioxide and methane during respiration. The amount of methane emission is critical to determining how a wetland interacts with the global climate system.

Safety is a top priority. USGS staff recently improved access to field sites at the Herring River estuary within the Cape Cod National Seashore to provide safer paths through a phragmites wetland.

Instruments continue to collect vital data during workplace closures. Here staff perform maintenance on an eddy flux tower located within a phragmites wetland at the Cape Cod National Seashore. The instruments on this tower measure methane and CO2 fluxes related to plant and soil processes day in and day out for the entire year.

Map of gas hydrate locations, known and inferred.  Browse graphic for ScienceBase data release, Preliminary global database of known and inferred gas hydrate locations. 

Map of the portion of the southwest coast of Puerto Rico affected by an earthquake sequence that began in December 2019, along with portions of the seafloor where faults involved in the earthquake sequence were suspected to exist.

When wetland plants in the northeast emerged this spring, USGS scientists were working from home and unable to start many planned research activities. However, many instruments were already deployed and continued to collect information critical to USGS research.

Locations of multichannel seismic reflection profiles (in black), collected during cruise FA2020-14. The profiles are overlain on colored and shaded multibeam bathymetry, Lidar topography (green and white) and near-shore bathymetry (darker blue), and NOAA coastal relief model (light blue and white).

USGS marine technician Wayne Baldwin prepares to deploy the hydrophone array during a seismic research cruise off the southwest coast of Puerto Rico on board the R/V Sultana in March 2020.

USGS marine technicians Alex Nichols (L) and Eric Moore (R) deploy the hydrophone array on a seismic research cruise off the southwest coast of Puerto Rico aboard the R/V Sultana in March 2020.

USGS research geologist Jason Chaytor (L) and marine technicians Alex Nichols (center) and Eric Moore (R) deploy the “sparker” sound source on a seismic research cruise off the southwest coast of Puerto Rico aboard the R/V Sultana in March 2020.

Alex Nichols, Wayne Baldwin, and Eric Moore deploying a streamer in Puerto Rico.

Collapsed arch in Guayanilla, Puerto Rico.

Iguana in the marine science laboratory at the university of Puerto Rico Isla Magueyes in La Parguera, Puerto Rico.

Map of seismic activity in Southwestern Puerto Rico.