All Multimedia

Boulder Glacier - Chapman Peak - 2007 color

Radially dipping strata of the cone include subequal proportions of lava flows and flow breccias and of proximal agglutinate and scoria falls, nearly all having 54 to 56 percent SiO2. Numerous mafic dikes and sills intrude the cone, and an apron of compositionally similar mafic lavas extends far outward from the cone.

Sediment texture and distribution data were mapped qualitatively in Esri ArcGIS using a hierarchical methodology. Backscatter data were the first input, followed by bathymetry, surficial geologic and shallow stratigraphic interpretations, and photograph and sample databases. DEM, digital elevation model.

Digital elevation model of Yellowstone National Park and vicinity, showing the location of the calderas formed during each of Yellowstone’s three most recent volcanic cycles. The youngest caldera-forming eruption produced Yellowstone Caldera (green line), located within Yellowstone National Park.

The USGS, in cooperation with Santa Cruz County and the California Department of Boating and Waterways, studied the seacliffs, ocean floor, and waves of Pleasure Point, California.   We created detailed maps of the seacliffs and ocean floor using LIDAR laser scanners and sonar.

A drill rig at the Mount Elbert test site in Alaska's North Slope, just west of Prudhoe Bay. USGS joined BP Exploration (Alaska) and the U.S. Department of Energy to drill a test well to study natural gas production from gas hydrate deposits. Read more about the Mt.

Golden aspen, Jemez Mountains, NM.

Hydrothermal system and water flow in the subsurface beneath Long Valley Caldera, California. Cartoon Illustration from USGS FS 2007-3045.

Measuring bridge scour in Montana

 Inner continental shelf sediment textures within western Massachusetts Bay classified using Barnhardt and others (1998). Bottom photographs A-D show sediment texture in select locations (photograph locations are shown as white dots on the sediment texture map).

Shaded relief image of Woods Hole, MA

Shaded relief backscatter image of a shipwreck near Cuttyhunk, MA

Single-well tracer tests involve injecting a tracer solution into one port of a multilevel sampling well, creating a tracer cloud in the groundwater, and then monitoring the water chemistry in the tracer cloud from the same well as the tracer cloud moves away from the well.

Image showing the bathymetry of the southern Gulf of Maine with the Massachusetts coastal zone boundary outlined in grey. The images on the right display how the geophysical and sample data are combined to create an interpretation of seafloor geology

Swath bathymetry and derivative products such as slope, hillshaded relief, and rugosity maps provide information not only on water depth, but also the roughness and smoothness of the sea floor, which correlates with sea floor texture and depositional environment.