Images

Map showing the paths that ocean current-following surface drifters deployed in coral larval slicks off west Maui traveled in 24 hours following their release during a coral spawning event. Such data suggests that the coral reefs off west-central Maui may provide coral larvae to the reefs off northeastern Lānaʻi.

Underwater photograph of larvae being released into the water column from reef-building coral spawning off Maui the night of June 30, 2003. The white larvae are about 0.5 to 1.5 mm across.

Coral atolls develop from reefs fringing volcanic islands. As first hypothesized by Charles Darwin, and confirmed by ocean drilling done by British scientists a century ago, reefs fringing volcanic islands build vertically to sea level, forming steep-walled barrier reefs.

Gas hydrate recovered in shallow layers just below the seafloor during piston coring in the Mississippi Canyon in the northern Gulf of Mexico in 2002.

Overall perspective view of the Los Angeles Margin and Basin looking northeast. The distance across the bottom of the image is about 100 kilometers with a vertical exaggeration of 6 times. The margin is bisected by a series of large underwater canyons, channels, and gullies.

Photograph of a coastal cliff where a large landslide occurred between 2002 and 2010. This photo, taken in 2002, shows the cliff before the landslide.

Large-scale poster describing USGS work.

The USGS mapped Crater Lake, Oregon using sonar, in cooperation with the National Park Service, the University of New Hampshire, and C&C Technologies.

Morphology and color-shaded bathymetry of the northeastern Caribbean region. Digital data courtesy of Troy Holcombe and Lisa Taylor, National Geophysical Data Center, Boulder, Colorado.

A bed of manganese nodules from deep offshore of the Cook Islands. Each color bar in the staff represents 10 centimeters.

A bed of manganese nodules from deep offshore of the Cook Islands; photo sourced from Hein et al., 2015, taken during a Japanese research cruise in the year 2000. Nodules range from about 2 to 10 centimeters across.

This image was acquired on December 26, 2000, by the Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus instrument aboard NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite.

An earthquake along a subduction zone happens when the leading edge of the overriding plate breaks free and springs seaward, raising the sea floor and the water above it. This uplift starts a tsunami. Meanwhile, the bulge behind the leading edge collapses, thinning the plate and lowering coastal areas.

Large-scale poster describing USGS work.

The USGS mapped western San Francisco Bay using sonar, in cooperation with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and C&C Technologies. Some parts of the Bay floor are so shallow that a large tanker or container ship could run aground at low tide and create a massive oil spill.

Aerial view of Assateague Island, looking north. Ocean City, Maryland, is visible in the far distance at top. Sinepuxent Bay lies between the island’s western shore and the Delmarva Peninsula to the upper left. Photograph taken in 1998 

George Tate (right, in light baseball cap) drives a raft on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, 1992. The crane near the bow was used to deploy a small tripod holding a rotating sidescan sonar, which sat on the riverbed recording the motion of underwater sand dunes.

This historic brick Studebaker Building, originally built in 1925, was chosen as the location for the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center in the late 1980s.

An automobile lies crushed under the third story of this apartment building in the Marina District. The ground levels are no longer visible because of structural failure and sinking due to liquefaction.

Large-scale poster describing USGS work.

The USGS, in cooperation with the UK Institute of Oceanographic Sciences (IOS) and others, took images of the seafloor 200 miles around the Hawaiian Islands using GLORIA. GLORIA is a long-range sonar that gives a bird’s-eye view of the seafloor.

Susan Russell-Robinson with USGS Deputy Director Joe Cragwall at a National Archives exhibit marking the 100th anniversary of the USGS in 1979.

George Tate playfully brandishes a grappling hook in a boat in Cook Inlet, Alaska, 1978. The driver (not shown) and George are about to motor away from the research vessel Sea Sounder to drag for the large tripod dubbed the Geoprobe. The apparatus had not deployed its recovery float and line, so the scientists had to try to hook it up off the seafloor.

Map shows floods in the Aguadilla-Aguada area, northwestern Puerto Rico. The image is from USGS Hydrologic Atlas 457, created in 1972.