Images

Photograph shows a USGS ATV equipped with GPS, ready to collect topographic data on Seacliff Beach in Aptos, California.

Map view. Colored shaded-relief bathymetry map of Offshore of Half Moon Bay map area, generated from multibeam echosounder data. Colors show depth: reds and oranges indicate shallower areas; light blues, deeper areas. Illumination azimuth is 300°, from 45° above horizon.

Map showing the distribution of physiographic zones within the Buzzards Bay study area. The physiographic zone classification is adapted from Kelley and others (1998), and the zones are delineated on the basis of sea-floor morphology and the dominant texture of surficial material.

Bottom simulating reflector imaged in 2014 by the USGS along a seismic line acquired south of Hudson Canyon during the Extended Continental Shelf cruise.  Image provided by D. Hutchinson and reproduced from USGS Fact Sheet 3080.

R/V Marcus G. Langseth entering NY Harbor

Since Hurricane Sandy, we have developed techniques to monitor short-term changes to the upper beach where both storm impacts and subsequent beach recovery are easily observed and measured.

Photo from a time-lapse camera looking eastward along the north shore of Barter Island, Alaska, on June 15, 2014. A video-camera station would capture even more detail about the processes that shape this coast.

Perspective view of coastal bathymetry looking onshore, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, mapped using lidar and depicted with false-color, showing detailed submerged features, including coral reefs.

A flow tripod (taller, right) and sonar tripod (smaller, left) at the dock before being loaded onto a ship and taken to a site off Fire Island for deployment.

A USGS researcher measures water and sediment movement at Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, New Jersey.

Split-beam (EK60) sonar image of bubbles (green) in the water column at a seep site overlooking Baltimore Canyon on the U.S. Atlantic margin. Although the bubbles appear to nearly reach the sea surface, the methane contained in the bubbles would have dissolved and been replaced by other gases by the time the bubbles rise several hundred meters.

Fire Island Lighthouse at Fire Island National Seashore

Preview image of multi-channel seismic data collected by the USGS off the US Seaboard Atlantic as part of the US Extended Continental Shelf project.

Inundated marsh at Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, New Jersey.

Visualization of hydrodynamics around seagrass patch.

Locations of the 97 beaches and barrier islands where our partners used the iPlover app to collect and record information on landcover characteristics at piping plover nesting locations during the breeding seasons of 2014-2016.

This is an example of a lidar image created from the “point cloud” that shows objects’ reflectivity near the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and the mouth of the San Lorenzo River.

Santa Cruz Main Beach and Boardwalk two days after a "Super Soaker" winter storm hit with 2.5 inches of rain in just a few hours' time.

Santa Cruz Main Beach and Boardwalk just before a "Super Soaker" winter storm hit with 2.5 inches of rain in just a few hours' time.

Offshore Sediment texture and Geomorphology

USGS Geographer Josh Logan sets up the lidar scanner near Capitola before the December 11, 2014 "Super Soaker" storm.