- 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive
- Reston, VA 20192, USA
- 703-648-5953
- 1-888-ASK-USGS
- Employee Directory
- Web Chat
Every year in the United States, natural hazards threaten lives and livelihoods and result in billions of dollars in damage. We work with many partners to monitor, assess, and conduct targeted research on a wide range of natural hazards so that policymakers and the public have the understanding they need to enhance preparedness, response, and resilience.
Hurricane Sandy made a variety of impacts along the highly populated northeastern Atlantic seaboard in October 2012. Improved understanding of these impacts will better prepare us for the next large storm.
Explore the Science
Americans are more at risk from natural hazards today than at any other time in our nation's history. The Science Application for Risk Reduction (SAFRR) Project builds natural hazards resilience through research and communication of hazards science.
Become SAFRRThrough these programs, the USGS provides alerts and warnings of geologic hazards and supports the warning responsibilities of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for geomagnetic storms, tsunamis, and volcanic ash.
Learn About Hazards
The U.S. Geological Survey is pleased to announce the selection of Dr. Guy Gelfenbaum as the new director of their Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center in Santa Cruz, California Gelfenbaum succeeds Dr. Robert Rosenbauer who held the position for the past six years. Rosenbauer is retiring to a Scientist Emeritus position.
Hundreds of articles have been written about the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, at Indonesia’s Mt. Tambora just over 200 years ago. But for a small group of New England-based researchers, one more Tambora story needed to be told, one related to its catastrophic effects in the Gulf of Maine that may carry lessons for intertwined human-natural systems facing climate change today.
On January 13, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey will be working on the beach in Santa Cruz at the mouth of the San Lorenzo River. Using a sonar-equipped boat and personal watercraft, they will be surveying the beach and the nearby ocean bottom to compile a three-dimensional map of how the beach changed during storms that struck this week.
Although sea-level highstands are typically associated with sediment-starved continental shelves, high sea level does not hinder major river floods. Turbidity currents generated by plunging of sediment-laden rivers at the fluvial-marine interface, known as hyperpycnal flows, allow for cross-shelf transport of suspended sand beyond the coastline...
Introduction Natural scientists, like many other experts, face challenges when communicating to people outside their fields of expertise. This is especially true when they try to communicate to those whose background, knowledge, and experience are far distant from that field of expertise. At a recent workshop, experts in risk communication offered...
Costs and consequences of natural hazards can be enormous; each year more people and infrastructure are at risk. We develop and apply hazards science to help protect U.S. safety, security, and economic well being. These scientific observations, analyses, and research are crucial for the Nation to become more resilient to natural hazards.
Read Our Science Strategy
SAFRR brings together tsunami and communication experts to discuss potential changes to safety messages, based on improved scientific understanding of Hawaii's tsunami hazard.
Students at Art Center College of Design learned about tsunamis from SAFRR partners in natural science, social science, and emergency management, then designed a fun, engaging, multi-faceted awareness campaign.
Scientists perform a range of studies that document, assess, and model coastal change, risk, and vulnerability. Studies include historical shoreline change, the geologic structure and history of coastal regions, sediment supply and transport, sea-level rise, and how extreme storm events affect rates and impacts of coastal change.
We study the distribution and hazard potential of coastal and submarine events such as earthquakes and submarine landslides and associated tsunami potential, hurricane induced coastal inundation, extreme storms, sea-level rise and oil and gas spills. We also model development to help evaluate and forecast coastal hazard probability and occurrence.
Our scientists conduct research studies focused on geologic mapping, sampling and understanding of mineral and energy resources and studies of the geologic setting and processes to inform renewable energy development offshore.
We bring together multidisciplinary expertise focused on developing tools and models to improve understanding of how healthy ecosystems function as well as how they respond to environmental changes and human impacts including ecosystem restoration. Research studies address coral reef, coastal wetland, benthic habitat and groundwater resources.
USGS scientists at the Wetland and Aquatic Research Center and other offices received funding for studies related to habitat change, storm surge and ecological modeling, migratory bird impacts, and other topics of interest. The Hurricane Sandy Spatial Data Mapping Application showcases the data and analytical products resulting from these studies.
The Volcano Hazards Program develops long-range volcano hazards assessments. These includes a summary of the specific hazards, their impact areas, and a map showing ground-hazard zones. The assessments are also critical for planning long-term land-use and effective emergency-response measures, especially when a volcano begins to show signs of unrest.
The HayWired project is an earthquake scenario currently underway to model and study impacts on the San Francisco Bay area from a Mw 7.05 earthquake on the Hayward fault.
View recent events or search for past earthquakes. Optimized for mobile and desktop.
View current advisories, events, and what is going on in the news.
There are 169 potentially active volcanoes in the U.S., and the USGS Volcano Hazards Program provides warnings of unrest and eruption for these volcanoes. We offer volcano monitoring data, provide maps and geologic information, conduct research how volcanoes work, and engage with community education and outreach.
This portal contains U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) video and photography of the seafloor off of coastal California and Massachusetts, and aerial imagery of the coastline along segments of the Gulf of Mexico and mid-Atlantic coasts. These data were collected as part of several USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program Seafloor Mapping projects and Hurricane and Extreme Storm research.
The Hurricane Sandy Spatial Data Mapping Application showcases data and analytical products from Aerial reconnaissance imagery; Environmental Contaminants; and Reproductive success of piper plovers.
Many volcanoes in the U.S. are monitored by arrays of several instruments that detect subtle movements within the earth and changes in gas and water chemistry. The Volcano Hazards Program streams this data to its Volcano Observatories and makes it available on volcano-specific websites.
Site provides access to Coastal and Marine Geology Program (CMGP) data via Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards services; serving data to GeoMapApp and Virtual Ocean 2-D and 3-D earth browsing tools, for data integration, visualization and analysis; and metadata catalogs for data discovery.
GIS data files for map areas offshore of California are listed with a brief description, a small image, and links to the metadata files and the downloadable data files.
Get real-time earthquake notifications sent to you using a number of popular mediums: Feeds, Email, Twitter, etc…
Where in the Nation are droughts or very low flows occurring now? How can I see these sites on a map and get to the data?
Map and data of real-time streamflow compared to historical streamflow for the day of the year in the U.S.
ISIS has many standard image processing operations such as contrast stretch, image algebra, filters, and statistical analysis. Isis operates on both classical two-dimensional images as well as three-dimensional cubes collected from imaging spectrometers. It also has unique capabilities for processing data from NASA spacecraft missions.
PILOT is a web based search tool for the Unified Planetary Coordinate (UPC) database of the Planetary Data System. PILOT features SPICE-corrected image locations and searching capabilities using a navigable map, user selectable image constraints, and facilitates bulk downloads and/or image processing using POW.
The Map Projection on the Web service was created to help researchers convert raw Planetary Data System images to a science-ready map projected images. The system integrates the Planetary Image LOcator Tool (PILOT) and the Unified Planetary Coordinate (UPC), ISIS3, GDAL, and the Astrogeology processing cluster for its’ processing needs.
CSMP is a cooperative program to create a comprehensive coastal and marine geologic and habitat base map series for all of California's State waters. Data collected during this project reveal the seafloor offshore of the California coast in unprecedented detail and provide an ecosystem context for the effective management of this precious marine resource.
This portal is a “go to” source for maps related to ocean and coastal mapping. Information is organized by geography or region, by theme, and by the year data was published.
Maps of flood and high flow conditions within the U.S.
We conduct post-fire debris-flow hazard assessments for select fires in the Western U.S. We use geospatial data related to basin morphometry, burn severity, soil properties, and rainfall characteristics to estimate the probability and volume of debris flows that may occur in response to a design storm.
This map and the original delineate areas where large numbers of landslides have occurred and areas which are susceptible to landsliding in the conterminous United States.
The purpose of the Inventory Project is to provide a framework and tools for displaying and analyzing landslide inventory data collected in a spatially aware digital format from individual states.
The Planetary Geologic Mapping Program serves the international science community through the production of high-quality and refereed geologic maps of planetary bodies. This program is in coordination between NASA science programs and the USGS Astrogeology Science Center.
View recent events or search for past earthquakes. Optimized for mobile and desktop.
View recent events or search for past earthquakes. Optimized for mobile and desktop.
The Natural Hazards Science Strategy is a 10-year plan to provide scientific observations, analyses, and research that are critical for the Nation to become more resilient to natural hazards.
Read Our Science Strategy
In steep topography, the processes governing variably saturated subsurface hydrologic response and the interparticle stresses leading to shallow landslide initiation are physically linked. However, these processes are usually analyzed separately. Here, we take a combined approach, simultaneously analyzing the influence of topography on both...
Giuseppe, Formetta; Simoni, Silvia; Godt, Jonathan W.; Lu, Ning; Rigon, RiccardoMobilized seafloor sediment can impact benthic reef communities through burial, scour, and turbidity. These processes are ubiquitous in coastal oceans and, through their influence on the survival, fitness, and interactions of species, can alter the structure and function of benthic communities. In northern Monterey Bay, California, USA, as much as...
Jared D. Figurski, Jan Freiwald, Steve I. Lonhart, and Curt D. StorlazziThis study is an investigation into the roles of wildfire and changing agricultural practices in controlling the inter-decadal scale trends of suspended sediment production from semi-arid mountainous rivers. In the test case, a decreasing trend in suspended sediment concentrations was found in the lower Salinas River, California between 1967 and...
A.B. Gray, G.B. Pasternack, E.B. Watson, M.A. Goñi, J.A. Hatten, J.A. WarrickAlthough sea-level highstands are typically associated with sediment-starved continental shelves, high sea level does not hinder major river floods. Turbidity currents generated by plunging of sediment-laden rivers at the fluvial-marine interface, known as hyperpycnal flows, allow for cross-shelf transport of suspended sand beyond the coastline...
Elisabeth Steel, Alexander R. Simms, Jonathan Warrick, Yusuke YokoyamaThe rugosity or complexity of the seafloor has been shown to be an important ecological parameter for fish, algae, and corals. Historically, rugosity has been measured either using simple and subjective manual methods such as ‘chain-and-tape’ or complicated and expensive geophysical methods. Here, we demonstrate the application of structure-from-...
Curt D. Storlazzi, Peter Dartnell, Gerald A. Hatcher, Ann E. GibbsSediment supplied by small mountainous rivers (SMRs) represents a major fraction of the global ocean sediment budget. Studies from the past two decades have shown that much of this sediment is dispersed by episodic wind and wave energy along storm-dominated coasts. In tidally dominated environments, however, different transport styles and deposits...
E.F. Eidam, A.S. Ogston, C.A. Nittrouer, J.A. WarrickIntroduction Natural scientists, like many other experts, face challenges when communicating to people outside their fields of expertise. This is especially true when they try to communicate to those whose background, knowledge, and experience are far distant from that field of expertise. At a recent workshop, experts in risk communication offered...
Perry, Suzanne C.; Blanpied, Michael L.; Burkett, Erin R.; Campbell, Nnenia M.; Carlson, Anders; Cox, Dale A.; Driedger, Carolyn L.; Eisenman, David P.; Fox-Glassman, Katherine T.; Hoffman, Sherry; Hoffman, Susanna M.; Jaiswal, Kishor S.; Jones, Lucile M.; Luco, Nicolas; Marx, Sabine M.; McGowan, Sean M.; Mileti, Dennis S.; Moschetti, Morgan P.; Ozman, David; Pastor, Elizabeth; Petersen, Mark D.; Porter, Keith A.; Ramsey, David W.; Ritchie, Liesel A.; Fitzpatrick, Jessica K.; Rukstales, Kenneth S.; Sellnow, Timothy L.; Vaughon, Wendy L.; Wald, David J.; Wald, Lisa A.; Wein, Anne; Zarcadoolas, ChristinaModels quantifying the onset of sediment motion do not typically account for the effect of biotic processes because they are difficult to isolate and quantify in relation to physical processes. Here we investigate an example of the interaction of kelp (Order Laminariales) and coarse sediment transport in the coastal zone, where it is possible to...
Masteller, Claire C; Finnegan, Noah J; Warrick, Jonathan; Miller, Ian M.Dam removal in the United States is increasing as a result of structural concerns, sedimentation of reservoirs, and declining riverine ecosystem conditions. The removal of the 32 m Elwha and 64 m Glines Canyon dams from the Elwha River in Washington, U.S.A., was the largest dam removal project in North American history.
Foley, Melissa M.; Duda, Jeffrey J.; Beirne, Matthew M.; Paradis, Rebecca; Ritchie, Andrew; Warrick, Jonathan A.An unprecedented increase in earthquakes in the U.S. mid-continent began in 2009. Many of these earthquakes have been documented as induced by wastewater injection. We examine the relationship between wastewater injection and U.S. mid-continent seismicity using a newly assembled injection well database for the central and eastern United States. We...
Weingarten, Matthew; Ge, Shemin; Godt, Jonathan W.; Bekins, Barbara A.; Rubinstein, Justin L.Previous estimations of sediment flux for the Salinas River of central California were based on data collected in the 1970s and assumptions of time invariant suspended sediment–discharge behavior. The goals of this study were to estimate sediment flux from the Salinas River using data from 1967–2011 by incorporating time dependent behavior and...
Andrew B. Gray, Gregory B. Pasternack, Elizabeth B. Watson, Jonathan A. Warrick, Miguel A. Goñi
The U.S. Geological Survey is pleased to announce the selection of Dr. Guy Gelfenbaum as the new director of their Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center in Santa Cruz, California Gelfenbaum succeeds Dr. Robert Rosenbauer who held the position for the past six years. Rosenbauer is retiring to a Scientist Emeritus position.
Hundreds of articles have been written about the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, at Indonesia’s Mt. Tambora just over 200 years ago. But for a small group of New England-based researchers, one more Tambora story needed to be told, one related to its catastrophic effects in the Gulf of Maine that may carry lessons for intertwined human-natural systems facing climate change today.
On January 13, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey will be working on the beach in Santa Cruz at the mouth of the San Lorenzo River. Using a sonar-equipped boat and personal watercraft, they will be surveying the beach and the nearby ocean bottom to compile a three-dimensional map of how the beach changed during storms that struck this week.
In early September of 2010, a pattern of increased earthquake activity occurred at the Mount Merapi volcano in Indonesia. A few days later, an avalanche was observed south of the mountain, and white plumes were seen rising above the crater. A lava dome detected in March began to increase rapidly.
How many potentially active volcanoes are there in the United States?
What is causing most of the induced earthquakes (aka man-made earthquakes) we’ve seen recently in the central United States?
USGS has many partnerships, both foreign and domestic, that enhance our science capabilities, provide needed support to others, and expand our ability to serve the global community. One little-known partnership that serves both foreign and domestic needs is the USGS science support to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) - U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM).
True or false? People are the leading cause of wildfires in the United States.
Residents should not be alarmed to witness a low-flying helicopter over the eastern Mojave Desert starting around November 14.
On November 14, 2016, the news media are invited to visit CVO and interview VDAP scientists about their work assisting foreign counterparts—responding to volcano eruptions and promoting volcano hazard awareness and preparedness.
For the first time, the United States will host the international Volcano Observatory Best Practices workshop, previously held only in Italy. The workshop will take place from November 15-18 in Vancouver, Washington. It is designed specifically for volcano observatories around the world and their staff to exchange ideas and best practices with each other.
New study investigates groundwater from the air
Phone: (831) 460-7401
Fax: (831) 427-4748
Phone: 928-556-7000
Fax: 928-556-7014
Phone: (650) 329-4668
Fax: (650) 329-5163
Phone: (727) 502-8000
Fax: (727) 502-8181
Phone: (508) 548-8700
Fax: (508) 457-2310
askHVO@usgs.gov
Phone: 808-967-7328
vhpweb@usgs.gov
Phone: 650-329-5083
http://www.avo.alaska.edu/contact.php
Phone: 907-786-7497
vhpweb@usgs.gov
Phone: 360-993-8900
Fax: 360-993-8980
yvowebteam@usgs.gov
Phone: 650-329-5083
