Images

Photograph of barrier islands near the western terminus of Icy Reef located on the Beaufort Sea coast of Alaska, looking south. Egaksrak Lagoon separates the islands from the low-lying mainland coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Brooks Range in the background.

Coral atolls are normally long, thin bars of white sand that rise just a few meters above sea level. The island or island group surrounds a hollow center where a volcanic peak once was. The atoll shown in this photo-like satellite image is the island of Tureia, in French Polynesia, in the South Pacific Ocean.

Landsat image of Maui, Hawaiʻi, with the small island of Kahoʻolawe to its south.

USGS scientists Andrew Schwartz and Dan Hanes maneuver a current profiler for a study of surf-zone hydrodynamics at Ocean Beach, on the west side of San Francisco, California. Beach erosion has been a continuing problem in this area.

Sonar-generated image showing underwater topography and the potential for landslides near the head of Resurrection Bay, Alaska. The terrain looks three times as steep as it occurs naturally. The arrow points to underwater landslide debris from the collapse of a fan-delta following the great Alaskan earthquake of 1964.

Tsunami wave field in the Bay of Bengal one hour after the M=9.1 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake on December 26, 2004. View looks to the northwest.

Shaded relief image of Nahant to Gloucester, MA

A field of giant sand waves, among the largest in the world, at the mouth of San Francisco Bay in California.

Dauphin Island, Alabama. Three-dimensional views of island topography (A-C), post-Katrina oblique aerial photograph (D), and differences in topography from Hurricanes Ivan (E) and Katrina (F). The view is along the island, looking from east to west, with the Gulf of Mexico to the left and Mississippi Sound to the right.

Dauphin Island, Alabama. Map views of post-storm difference grids for Hurricanes Ivan (A) and Katrina (B), and vertical photography of the same location (C). The lidar images show elevation gains (green) and losses (red).

In the top image, taken in 1998, notice the pier, pier house, and the antebellum house. The bottom image shows the same location on August 31, 2005, two days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall. This photo shows the complete destruction of these landmarks.

The top image was taken off the coast of Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, in July 1998 by researchers at the University of New Orleans. In this image, notice the large multi-story houses, some of which are built on stilts to protect the homes from flooding. The bottom image shows the same location on August 31, 2005, two days after landfall of Hurricane Katrina.

The top image, taken off the coast of Waveland, Mississippi, in July 1998, shows several large oceanfront homes, and thick wooded vegetation bordering the sandy beach. The bottom image shows the same location on August 31, 2005, two days after landfall of Hurricane Katrina.

Shaded relief image of the Outer Cape Cod, MA

Large-scale poster describing USGS work.

USGS scientists needed a better way to measure river sand in the Grand Canyon. Traditionally, scientists used a bucket to get about 75 sand samples on each trip, which were analyzed weeks later in a lab.

Large-scale poster describing USGS work.

Large-scale poster describing USGS work.

The USGS, in cooperation with the Upper Yuba River Studies Program and the California Bay–Delta Authority (CALFED), studied Englebright Lake. Englebright Dam was built in 1941 to trap sediment washed downstream by hydraulic gold mining.

Looking south over the coral reef surrounding Loggerhead Key, Dry Tortugas National Park. Dry Tortugas Lighthouse stands on Loggerhead Key. To the right in the background is Garden Key, where civil-war era Fort Jefferson is located.

Homes along the edge of the coast in Isla Vista, California, Santa Barbara County, face a short lifespan because of eroding bluffs that support them.

The Dungeness crab (Metacarcinus magister), whose range extends from the Aleutian Islands to the coast of California, is one of the species whose populations in San Francisco Bay have increased with a large-scale climatic shift that began in 1999. Photograph courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Stromatolites growing in Hamelin Pool Marine Nature Reserve, Shark Bay in Western Australia. Photo by Paul Harrison, Reading, UK, CC BY-SA 3.0