Images

Looking over the dunes towards the beach in the Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness at Fire Island, New York. 

Scientists collected sand auger cores from Fire Island to help reconstruct the evolution of the barrier over the last several centuries, with the goal of quantifying changes in sediment input and partitioning through time (e.g. how sand is distributed between the terrestrial portion of the barrier and the beach/shoreface).

Scientists collected sand auger cores from Fire Island to help reconstruct the evolution of the barrier over the last several centuries, with the goal of quantifying changes in sediment input and partitioning through time (e.g., how sand is distributed between the terrestrial portion of the barrier and the beach/shoreface).

Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center Sediment Analysis Laboratory's Bruker CTX 800C benchtop x-ray fluorescence unit (USGS laboratory equipment number WH-SED-Bruker-CTX800C_1).

In collaboration with the National Park Service, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and the Vesta Corporation, the Environmental Geosciences group researched a new approach to climate change mitigation. The team led an experiment at the Herring River site as a first examination.

Student contractor Erin Lyons swims over a coral reef during research surveys.

Sandy Brosnahan and Eric Marsjanik of the USGS Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center while diving to level previously installed ADCPs. Photo credit: Danny Hansen (USGS) 

Sandy Brosnahan of the USGS Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center preparing to dive in the Norwalk River to service and level a bottom mounted ADCP.

USGS staff from the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center and the New England Water Science Center leveling a bottom mounted ADCP off the pier located in the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. The ADCP will record water level and flow velocity. Photo credit: Danny Hansen (USGS) 

Deep water camera and light installed in the head weight of the upgraded USGS jumbo piston corer. In the background, USGS Marine Engineering Technician Daniel Powers is preparing the core liner for sediment collection. 

USGS personnel deploying instrumentation at the Stone Harbor marsh site in Stone Harbor, New Jersey on March 22, 2022. 

The wee strand is a beach along the head of of Loch Indaal, Scotland. Loch Indaal is an ocean bay on Islay, the southernmost island of the Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland.

Upgraded USGS jumbo piston corer being readied for deployment off the research vessel Hugh R. Sharp in April 2022.

PCMSC scientist measuring land-surface elevation near the bay-marsh edge of Whale's Tail South marsh in Eden Landing Ecological Reserve, Hayward, CA, with birds foraging on the South San Francisco Bay mudflats at low tide in the background.

Percent of U.S. waters that remain unmapped as of January 2022: U.S. total – 52% of 3,590,500 square nautical miles (snm). 

USGS scientists survey the precise location of a camera calibration target. The surveyed locations are used to georeference USGS CoastCam imagery.

By circulating water downward through a clear chamber (“capture cone”), bubbles of gas can be held, imaged and studied over time.  The left image shows bubbles of xenon in the process of developing coatings of gas hydrate.  The shiny bubble indicated near the top is hydrate-free, the white/opaque bubbles have coatings of xenon hydrate.  A few bubbles

Pre- and post-Hurricane Dorian aerial imagery showing extreme sediment transport, overwash and breaches along the barrier islands of the North Carolina coast.

USGS scientist cuts open core taken in the field to sample soils and vegetation for chemical analysis. 

The marshes of Plum Island Estuary are among those predicted by scientists to submerge during the next century under conservative projections of sea-level rise.

Geologist Alisha Ellis kneels in the marsh grass while collecting sediment samples in Mississippi.