9 December 2010
Archival Gold: Earth science photos you may not have seen
Posted by Jessica Ball
While I was working at the American Geological Institute, I helped with a lot of projects that required photo research. To keep costs down, we usually tried to find non-copyrighted images (i.e., from websites with a .gov address). As it turns out, there are a lot of really useful places besides Wikipedia to get images, and they’re ones I still use when I want to illustrate a concept (and I’m not sure about using someone else’s images on the blog). Since I seem to have a little trouble finding a weekly feature that someone else in the geoblogosphere isn’t already doing, I thought I’d make it my task to share “forgotten” photos from my research sources. I’ll start you off with some winter-themed images from the United States Geological Survey Photo Library.
Here’s a lovely shot of the Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park…from the 1880s!
"Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Old Faithful in Upper Geyser Basin in eruption, probably viewed from the side nearest the Firehole River. Photo probably by W.H. Jackson, either 1878 (Hayden Survey), 1883, or 1885 (for W.H. Jackson & Co., Denver)." USGS Photo Library.
And, just because I couldn’t resist, here’s a more lighthearted shot of some geologists at Mount St. Helens after the 1980 eruption:
"Assistants are hard to find in the winter months! Snowman between two geologists at work. Mount St. Helens, Skamania County, Washington. February 11, 1983. Photograph by Lyn Topinka." USGS Photo Library.
Jessica Ball is a volcanologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, researching volcanic hydrothermal systems and stability, and doing science communication for the California Volcano Observatory. She previously worked at the Geological Society of America's Washington DC Policy Office, learning about the intersection of Earth science and legislative affairs. Her Mendenhall postdoc and PhD focused on how water affects the stability of volcanoes, and involved both field investigations and numerical modeling applications. Her blogging covers a range of topics, from her experiences in academic geosciences to science outreach and communication to her field and lab work in volcanology.
Just wondering if you know about the NOAA natural hazards-images of geologic hazards website? at
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/hazardsimages.html
I do! That’s one of my favorites, and I’ll definitely be featuring some images from there. Thanks for the reminder!
Is that snowman keeping a Budweiser cold? I knew I was going into the right field when I chose geology. Thanks for the image links.
I love the W.H. Jackson photos.