2008-01-01 Sandbar, St. Clair River, Canada, 2002 Photograph by Jay Dickman
The Great Lakes hold a fifth of Earth's surface fresh water, and they've shrunk dramatically. For some, like this child playing in the St. Clair River, that means miles of newly exposed shoreline and sandbars to explore. For others, like those in the shipping and fishing industry, lakefront property owners, and water-dependent animal species, it's a disaster in the making.
(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Down the Drain," September 2002, National Geographic magazine)
2008-01-02 Jellyfish, Alaska, 1998 Photograph by Michael Melford
Jellyfish drift in the frigid waters of Alaska's Inside Passage. These waters flow through Tongass National Forest—a rich, shadowy, complex place fecund with life. Among its riches: thick carpets of mosses and ferns, streams jet-black with salmon, more bald eagles and brown bears than anywhere else in North America, and trees that can live for 500 years and reach 225 feet (69 meters) into the sky.
(Text from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "A Wilder Passage," May/June 1999, National Geographic Traveler magazine)
2008-01-03 Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park, Hawaii Photograph by Walker Brooks
Two carved wooden images, called ki'i , overlook Keone'ele Cove in Hawaii's Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park. These statues and dozens of others stand sentry over the Hale o Keawe temple, a sacred place where the bones of 23 Hawaiian chiefs once rested.
(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Insider's Hawaii," November/December 2002, National Geographic Traveler magazine)
图中这两个木制雕像,称为ki'i,眺望着夏威夷的霍那吾那吾(Pu‘uhonua o Honaunau)国家历史公园里的Keone'ele海湾。这些以及许多其它的雕像守卫着奇阿威(Hale o Keawe)神庙,在这神圣之处中埋藏着23位长眠于此的夏威夷酋长的遗骨。
2008-01-04 Baby Gorilla, Gabon, 2000 Photograph by Michael Nichols
Lekedi, a baby western lowland gorilla, sits for a close-up at a gorilla orphanage in Gabon. Central Africa's lowland gorilla populations suffer from steady habitat loss, capture and killing by poachers, and the cross fire of civil wars within their range. Conservationists are working to avert the species' extinction by collecting gorilla orphans, nurturing and socializing them, and ultimately releasing them back into the wild.
(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Central Africa's Orphan Gorillas: Will They Survive in the Wild?" February 2000, National Geographic magazine)
2008-01-05 Hedgerows near Brecon Beacons National Park, Wales Photograph by Sam Abell
A wide hedgerow, growing thick with hawkweed, borders a field in south Wales, near Brecon Beacons National Park. Besides serving as a fence between properties and supporting dozens of species of flora and fauna in their densely planted rows, hedgerows knit together disparate fields into a picturesque quilt of undulating fields.
(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Britain's Hedgerows," September 1993, National Geographic magazine)
2008-01-06 Volcanic Steam, Mount St. Helens, Washington, 2000 Photograph by Jim Richardson
On Mount St. Helens, a volcanic formation seems to come to life as it exhales a cloud of steam. The volcano in southwestern Washington's Cascade Range is most famous for its May 1980 eruption, one of the largest ever recorded in North America. The catastrophic eruption killed 57 people and triggered an enormous debris avalanche that carved a mile-wide (1.5-kilometer-wide) crater on the mountain.
(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Mount St. Helens: Nature on Fast Forward," May 2000, National Geographic magazine)
2008-01-07 Dog and Truck, Colorado, 2001 Photograph by David Alan Harvey
A speckled dog catches a ride in Rico, Colorado, the center of a silver mining boom in the late 1800s. But the heyday is long since over, the mines are closed, and the town population is down to fewer than 200 year-round residents. And for many in this quirky mountain town, that's just fine.
(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "ZipUSA: Rico, Colorado," March 2001, National Geographic magazine)
2008-01-08 Beipiaosaurus Fossil, China, 1999 Photograph by O. Louis Mazzatenta
The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, part of the Academia Sinica in Beijing, houses the fossilized teeth of the dinosaur Beipiaosaurus. The prehistoric reptile lived in the Cretaceous period, about 125 million years ago.
(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Feathers for T. Rex," November 1999, National Geographic magazine)
2008-01-09 Cape Fur Seal and Bull Kelp, South Africa, 2002 Photograph by David Doubilet
The sun silhouettes the sinuous form of a Cape fur seal plunging through a forest of bull kelp fronds off the coast of Gansbaai, South Africa. Though clumsy on land, Arctocephalus pusillus, or Cape fur seals, epitomize grace underwater. They patrol the coastal waters of South Africa and southeast Australia, feeding on fish, squid, cuttlefish, and octopus.
(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Oceans of Plenty: South Africa's Teeming Seas," August 2002, National Geographic magazine)
Morning fog blankets a tree-lined bog somewhere in the Arctic boreal forest. Boreal forests have more wetlands area than anywhere else in the world, with Russia and Canada each containing an estimated one million to two million lakes and ponds.
(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Boreal: The Great Northern Forest," June 2002, National Geographic magazine)