Red gorgonian on rocky reef, below kelp forest, underwater. The red gorgonian is a filter-feeding temperate colonial species that lives on the rocky bottom at depths between 50 to 200 feet deep. Gorgonians are oriented at right angles to prevailing water currents to capture plankton drifting by.
Species: Red gorgonian, Leptogorgia chilensis, Lophogorgia chilensis
Location: San Clemente Island, California
Image ID: 25393
Earth shadow over Los Islotes Island, famous for its friendly colony of California sea lions, Espiritu Santo Biosphere Reserve, Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico.
Location: Sea of Cortez, Baja California, Mexico
Image ID: 27364
Panorama dimensions: 5269 x 12646
Flama de la Amistad, a statue by Leonardo Nierman. Installed in the San Diego Convention Center’s outdoor amphitheater, Flame of Friendship is a polished, stainless-steel statue set against San Diego Bay weighing 3,700 pounds and standing 20 feet tall and eight feet wide.
Location: San Diego, California
Image ID: 26556
Kelp fronds and pneumatocysts. Pneumatocysts, gas-filled bladders, float the kelp plant off the ocean bottom toward the surface and sunlight, where the leaf-like blades and stipes of the kelp plant grow fastest. Giant kelp can grow up to 2' in a single day given optimal conditions. Epic submarine forests of kelp grow throughout California's Southern Channel Islands.
Species: Giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera
Location: San Clemente Island, California
Image ID: 25396
Roosevelt elk, adult bull male with large antlers. This bull elk has recently shed the velvet that covers its antlers. While an antler is growing, it is covered with highly vascular skin called velvet, which supplies oxygen and nutrients to the growing bone; once the antler has achieved its full size, the velvet is lost and the antler's bone dies. This dead bone structure is the mature antler, which is itself shed after each mating season. Roosevelt elk grow to 10' and 1300 lb, eating grasses, sedges and various berries, inhabiting the coastal rainforests of the Pacific Northwest.
Species: Roosevelt elk, Cervus canadensis roosevelti
Location: Redwood National Park, California
Image ID: 25878
Milky Way over Sandstone Fins. Sandstone fins stand on edge. Vertical fractures separate standing plates of sandstone that are eroded into freestanding fins, that may one day further erode into arches.
Location: Arches National Park, Utah
Image ID: 29254
Beautiful Caribbean coral reef, sponges and hard corals, Grand Cayman Island.
Location: Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
Image ID: 32179
San Diego and Tijuana City Skyline, panoramic photo, viewed from Mount Soledad.
Location: San Diego, California
Image ID: 36664
Panorama dimensions: 5189 x 15626
The OVRO 40 meter Telescope, part of the Owens Valley Radio Observatory located near Big Pine, California, USA. The telescope is used to conduct interferometric observations along with the other telescopes in the observatory, as a Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) station and as a single dish instrument. Its main focus today is on the monitoring of blazars.
Location: Big Pine, California
Image ID: 28793
Humpback whale competitive group, several adult male escort whales swimming closely together as part of a larger competitive group.
Species: Humpback whale, Megaptera novaeangliae
Location: Maui, Hawaii
Image ID: 02862