Images

Photograph collected from a UAS flown over the beach at Tres Palmas in Rincón, Puerto Rico.

On May 6, 2019, Congressman Charlie Crist (13^th district, FL) and Operations and Outreach Director Mr. Kendrick Lewis will visit the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center (SPCMSC). Congressman Crist requested this visit because he is interested to learn more about the Center and to discuss needs/priorities that we may have.

In Photo: Interior mudflat on Jim Foot Key covered with saline water, April 2019.  Stumps of dead mangroves (reportedly damaged by Hurricane Donna in 1960 (Craighead, 1962)) are visible projecting from the water.  Shadowed areas below the water are underwater grasses typically found in Florida Bay, now growing inside

In Photo: Juvenile mangroves on eastern berm of Jim Foot Key, April 2019.  Mangroves are intermingled with saltwort, the dominant live vegetation on the damaged berms, and standing dead mangroves.  Grid is 25 cm high.  The question is whether these trees will mature fast enough to protect the berm from rising sea level. 

Jessica Rodysill (Reston) and Hunter Wilcox (SPCMSC) deploying a corer in Lake Enriquillo. The scientists will use the cores to construct precipitation changes in Dominican Republic over the late Holocene (~5000 years ago to present) time period.

SPMSC scientist Lauren Toth conducts a photographic survey of Porter Patch reef off Key Largo, one of the sites that has been surveyed as part of FWRI’s Coral Reef Ecosystem Monitoring project since 1996.

In Photo:  Berm of Jim Foot Key about 1.5 years after Hurricane Irma. The red circle indicates the same position as shown in the April 2014 photo. The mature mangrove trees have not recovered from the storm.  

In Photo: Eastern berm of Jim Foot Key, April 2019.  This photo taken from Florida Bay, looking in toward the center of the island (now covered in water).  The arrow points toward a breach in the berm, first noted in 2014, but the cut has deepened significantly after Hurricane Irma, and the island interior

 USGS unmanned aerial system (drone) pilot collecting aerial imagery and ground control points for the Coastal Resource Evaulation for Management Applications (CREMA) project on Dauphin Island, Alabama

After Hurricane Michael obliterated Fish Inn, the sea turtle research team's field station, team members salvaged some of the building's floor tiles and made this sea turtle mosaic, which they plan to eventually install in a new field station.

Conducting field work after Hurricane Irma on Bob Allen Key in Florida Bay, Everglades National Park, January 29, 2018. Lynn Wingard (left) and Miriam Jones (right) consult field notes from 2014 to decide where to take samples. Photo: B. Stackhouse, USGS

Mangroves on the outside of a playa within Florida Bay.

Mangroves on the outside of a playa within Florida Bay.

After a long day collecting cores, the team of scientists watch the sun set over the Florida Bay.

Mangroves grow along the outside of a playa, one of may in the Florida Bay area.

In an effort spanning the Natural Hazards and Ecosystems Mission Areas, pilots from the Saint Petersburg and Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Centers collect imagery data using Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) while personnel from the Wetlands and Aquatic Research Center (WARC) conduct ground-based site surveys of Pelican Island, Alabama.

Two divers work to collect a long core sample from a coral reef in Florida.

USGS unmanned aerial system (uas) mapping team on the beach in Dauphin Island, Alabama

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.

My neighbor's driveway with some water on it... not very exciting, but it is an excellent example of how groundwater flows underground and can seep back to the land surface. This simple process demonstrates one of the basic aspects of the water cycle.

Snapshot of Isla Verde in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from a coastal video monitoring station