Images

Preview image for video: A rockfall on the east rim of the summit vent within Kīlauea Volcano's Halema‘uma‘u Crater triggered a small explosive event at 3:51 a.m., HST, on January 8, 2016. Explosive events like this occur more frequently when the lava lake level is relatively high, as it has been this past week—around 30-35 m (100-115 ft) below the vent rim.

The coastal bluff along East Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz, California are especially vulnerable to rising sea level during big storms. Sometimes even the rip-rap, put in place to protect roadways and homes, cannot protect the bluffs from erosion.

Thousands of Common Murre carcasses piled up on beaches in Pigot Bay following the massive die-off of murres in 2015/2016.

Underwater view of periphyton on rocks and the Lake Tahoe shoreline.

The USGS Streamgage at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, during the 2015/2016 Mississippi River Valley Flooding.

A dead Common Murre found on the beach in Prince William Sound on Jan 7, 2016. This bird was part of the large die-off of Common Murres across the Gulf of Alaska in 2015-2016. 

Waves flood across a coastal road near Santa Cruz, California.

View of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk amusement park in Santa Cruz, California. Photo was taken from the bluff on East Cliff Drive, east of the San Lorenzo River mouth. Sand on the beach gets eroded, redistributed, and deposited due to the dynamic conditions brought about by storms and changing river flow.

USGS Library locations offer collections and services to USGS staff and public researchers.

Sections of Fashion Valley Road, San Diego, were closed by flooding of the San Diego River. Closed roads were a common scene in San Diego and throughout California during the El Niño-related storms, Jan 6 - 7, 2016. Hydrographers from the Poway Field Office closely monitored high-flow conditions throughout the storms.

Jon Newby and Travis Kordiak, USGS Hydrographers from the California Water Science Center Redlands Field Office, take high-water measurements at USGS streamgaging site 11059300. The site is on the Santa Ana River in San Bernardino, California, and is one of more than 500 streamgage locations in California.

Wabash River at New Harmony IN - 2016 flooding

On January 4, a rockfall within the Overlook vent at the summit of Kīlauea generated another small explosive event at 3:18 a.m., HST. In this image, captured by a USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory webcam, the dusty gas plume can be seen rising from the vent after rocks impacted the lava lake.

Synthetic surrogate water-hardened Silver Carp Eggs settled on top of a sediment bed. Laboratory experiments in flowing water demonstrate egg suspension at lower velocities than previously thought.

In this photo of Kīlauea Volcano's summit lava lake, the light-colored rock in the vent wall to the left of the spattering lava shows were a rockfall occurred on January 2. The shadow of the gas plume appears as a brown streak perpendicular to the dark-colored lava on the floor of Halema‘uma‘u Crater.

USGS hydrologic technician Deena Green collects streamflow data at streamgage station 12413875, St. Joe River at Red Ives Ranger Station, Idaho

USGS hydrologist Jason Ramage collects a groundwater-level measurement using a steel tape in Freeport, Texas. 

A new interactive web application illustrates how groundwater, sediment compaction and land-elevation change are related in the Houston-Galveston region in Texas. 

On remote Barter Island, Alaska, Bruce Richmond (right) and Cordell Johnson drill into 500-foot-thick permafrost using a handheld drill with a 2-inch drill bit—a challenging task! It can take 3 hours to drill nearly 20 feet down.

This is a graphic showing the boundary of the Williston Basin Province and Oil and Gas Wells, North Dakota, South Dakota and Eastern Montana, 2016

The Hawaiian ‘I‘iwi, a native forest bird species only found in the Hawaiian Islands. 

Coastal area within the North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative region for which predictions have been generated.