USGS Photo Library
October 9, 2008 3:36 PM   Subscribe

U. S. Geological Survey Photographic Library

Highlight the term and click submit if you're not doing a keyword search. That's about the only flaw I could find with the site.
posted by sleepy pete (8 comments total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
Great stuff. Thanks for this!
posted by R_Nebblesworth at 5:15 PM on October 9, 2008 [1 favorite]


Wow, what a treasure trove!

They sure made it frustrating to navigate, but it's worth the extra clicks.
posted by amyms at 5:21 PM on October 9, 2008


Definitely agreed on the frustrating navigation, but also agreed that it's worth it. The Mount St. Helens photos alone are absolutely astonishing. Great find!
posted by malthas at 5:27 PM on October 9, 2008


Oh man, sleepy pete, you found a gold mine with this site!

The historic photographs are amazing. Main street in Cheyenne. Laramie County, Wyoming. 1869. Some are so evocative, like this old 1920 car, petroglyphs.

The scientist's eye for details in the captions, like this one of the Grand Canyon: A dense community of saltcedar, arrowweed, and seep willow has become established along the shore on both sides of the Colorado River. The fan on the right is more heavily overgrown by plants than in 1923, except for the formerly stabilized high terrace which now seems to be covered by a sand deposit. The Colorado River no longer floods the large bare area with boats and people on it. As a result, fine material, deposited by flooding on Diamond Creek, now covers the gravels that were present earlier. Bermuda grass grows in moist soil near the shelters.

My dad, who worked for the Department of Mines and Geology in California, was a geologist and they tend to take quite matter of fact photographs. So many of these images are familiar in their ambiance. this guy even looks like my dad, blond, smoking a pipe and looking at rocks, lol.

Nankoweap cliff dwellings. wow. Cool.

Nice find. Thanks.
posted by nickyskye at 6:02 PM on October 9, 2008


There's some great stuff here. Thanks for the post!
posted by oneirodynia at 6:32 PM on October 9, 2008


When they say Click for higher resolution the second time they aren't kidding. This is awesome.
posted by Mitheral at 7:16 PM on October 9, 2008


Yay! I wonder if it's possible to dig up similar images for other countries...
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 6:13 AM on October 10, 2008


Excellent! Duly bookmarked & emailed to my coworkers - thanks.
posted by mygothlaundry at 7:19 AM on October 10, 2008


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