Images

Iowa State Grad students Devan McGranahan and Torre Hovick, along with DNR private land specialist Josh Rusk and ISU Research Technician Shannon Rusk ignite a prescribed fire on a patch-burn grazing research pasture in southern Iowa.

Ash-rich plume rises out of Halemaʻumaʻu Crater, Kilauea Volcano Hawaiʻi.
 

View of ash-rich plume rising from a new vent in Halema‘uma‘u Crater in Kīlauea Caldera 5 days after the first explosion from the vent occurred on March 19, 2008. The ash is turning the formerly white steam and gas plume a dusty-brown color. Note the ash fallout down-wind of the plume.

B.K. Martin, hydrologic technician in the Little Rock office of the USGS Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center, measuring streamflow with an acoustic doppler current profiler during flood of March 19, 2008, at USGS streamflow-gaging station 07056000, Buffalo River near St. Joe, Arkansas. Photograph by W.E.

The explosion occurred at 2:58 a.m. HST on March 19, 2008. The explosion scattered rock debris over an area of about 30 hectares (75 acres), covering a portion of Crater Rim Drive and damaging Halema‘uma‘u Overlook. The wooden fence of the overlook was bombarded by rocks hurled onto the rim of Halema‘uma‘u crater from the fumarolic area.

This fumarolic area appeared on March 12, 2008. Gas is being emitted through rubble the Halema‘uma‘u Crater wall. The white fume is a mixture of condensed water vapor, sulfur trioxide, and invisible sulfur dioxide. The fume takes a pale bluish color if it contains very tiny sulfur particles (in center of fuming area).

Glass Mountain obsidian flow at Medicine Lake volcano, California. Glass Mountain is a spectacular, nearly treeless, steep-sided rhyolite and dacite obsidian flow that erupted just outside the eastern caldera rim and flowed down the steep eastern flank of Medicine Lake volcano.

Scientists at Lake Michigan Ecological Research Station are examining how habitat structure, fire history, nesting resources, and plant community composition affect bee community composition.

Stream of lava from Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō flowing through the forest in the Royal Gardens subdivision, February 28, 2008. The lava stream is about 3 m (10 ft) wide. Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i.

HVO technicians install a solar-powered seismic station near the summit of Kīlauea Volcano to monitor earthquake activity. The seismic data is transmitted via radio signal directly to the observatory, where the data is initially analyzed by automatic computer programs and then examined in greater detail by a seismologist. Mauna Loa Volcano in background.

Underwater photograph of Tumon Bay Marine Reserve, Guam, showing some of the amazing biologic diversity of coral reefs.

A surface expression of geothermal activity.

A surface expression of geothermal activity.

A surface expression of geothermal activity.

South, Middle, and North Sister volcanoes viewed aerially from the south, Three Sisters Oregon.

East face of North Sister, 750 m high. Consists of about 100 thin mafic lava flows and intercalated layers of red scoria, capped by thick summit lava flows. Remnant of Thayer Glacier feeds cirque lake. Pervasively altered yellow-orange buttress on right, 250 m thick, consists of east-dipping, palagonitized, ash-rich fragmental flow deposits.

Prouty Glacier headwall on the northeast face of South Sister. Dipping stacks of lava and scoria were excavated by Prouty Glacier, exposing cross-sectional views of the last 33,000 years of summit activity. The 350-m-thick (11,500-ft) lava stacks are truncated at about 3000 m (9,800 ft) elevation, forming the ragged rim of a broad paleocrater.

Lost Creek Glacier and its cirque are in the center, and Eugene Glacier and its cirque are toward the bottom left. Fingerlike lobes of dacite lava dribble down northwest ridge atop fragmental deposit and beneath capping agglutinate. The entire edifice visible here was built between 30 and 20 ka.

Radially dipping strata of the cone include subequal proportions of lava flows and flow breccias and of proximal agglutinate and scoria falls, nearly all having 54 to 56 percent SiO2. Numerous mafic dikes and sills intrude the cone, and an apron of compositionally similar mafic lavas extends far outward from the cone.

Oblique hillshaded-relief view of the bathymetry surrounding Martha’s Vineyard and the Upper Cape looking south across Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound

Scientists rely on measurements and networks of sensors to monitor Earth’s movements. Similar to tracking someone’s pulse, these sensors check the ‘hazard heartbeat’ of Earth’s surface, waters, and air. Hazard monitoring helps us understand where, when, why, and how much things change over time.