Images

Map of locations of instrument moorings where we collected time-series oceanographic data from the Monterey Canyon, offshore of Montery, California, from October 2015 - March 2017

Maps show eelgrass distribution (left) along the tracklines followed by the boat (right).

Cave passage and diver (Bil Philips, cave explorer) in Ox Bel Ha Cave System of the northeastern Yucatan Peninsula.

Topography and bathymetry of southern Cascadia, which includes southern Oregon and northern California (seafloor depths between 200 and 3000 m are shown in the spectrum color scale from red (shallower) to purple (deeper). The land and continental shelf are shown in grayscale slope shading where darker colors represent steeper slopes.

Reefs provide protection from waves and wave-driven flooding. A snapshot from the simulation of wave-driven flooding and island overwash for an annual storm at the Republic of the Marshall Islands is shown.

Animation showing contaminants entering the ocean through the large river discharge following Hurricane Florence (higher concentrations displayed with lighter color).

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.

Three-dimensional model of Chimney Bluffs, New York along Lake Ontario created from low-altitude digital images collected from an unmanned aerial system (UAS).

The beach-dependent shorebirds project at the Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center models current and future habitat availability for nesting shorebirds in an effort to map current and likely future habitat availability on a range of sites along the U.S. Atlantic coast.

Amy Gartman waits for an X-ray diffractometer to analyze samples of hydrothermal sulfide minerals. 

Mineral-laden water emerging from a hydrothermal vent on the Niua underwater volcano in the Lau Basin, southwest Pacific Ocean. As the water cools, minerals precipitate to form tower-like “chimneys.” Image taken during 2016 cruise “Virtual Vents.”  

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.

USGS scientists retrieve and process samples from an ecological processing monitoring station. Each station includes a caged native mussel (shown attached to the buoy rope) and a sampler for measuring invertebrate consumers

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 storms can severely alter the topography and ecosystems along heavily populated coastal regions. Seamless integrated elevation data for both land and submerged areas in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey, are fundamental to coastal planning of the northeastern U.S. Atlantic coast.

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. 

Shaded-relief map of central California showing location of the Big Sur area (white dashed line). Red line shows the San Gregorio-Hosgri fault (SGHF) and the Big Sur Bend between Point Sur (PS) and Piedras Blancas (PB). Black lines show other faults.

Perspective view of part of the Big Sur Bend in the San Gregorio-Hosgri fault. The steep slope beside the fault results from uplift along the fault, which is part of the strike-slip fault system that forms the boundary in California between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates.

An aerial view, collected from a USGS UAS, of Hawai‛i’s fissure 8 cone, and the start of the 8-mile lava flow to reach the ocean entry point.