The U.S. Geological Survey captured the upper parts of the landslide in Oso, Wash., in an aerial survey taken five days after this natural disaster killed 41 people. "Active" search and rescue efforts were suspended this week as the community turned its attention to debris removal.

Credit: Jonathan Godt, USGS

In the Belham Valley of Montserrat, a valley overrun by lahars--volcanic flows that stayed higher up the mountainside and which washed down due to intense rains--E. Bruce Pitman joined engineers, statisticians and geoscientists who in 2011 were studying 15 years of eruptions there. Pitman is actually standing on a house's first floor roof. Mudslides decimated the house 10 years prior.

Credit: Elaine Spiller, Marquette University