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Backscatter extracted from gridded bathymetry of the banktops and shelf environments of Saipan, of the Mariana Islands Archipelago.

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This data set is part of a larger set of data called the MultiBeam Bathymetric Data Base (MBBDB) where other similar data can be found at http://maps.ngdc.noaa.gov/viewers/multibeam/

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Variable mesh gillnets were used to evaluate the abundance of young of the year sablefish during 1995-2002. Data include. Vessel, cruise, station. Species caught, and lengths of fish caught. The data were collected to be able to forecast year-class strength of sablefish.

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CTD, bottle, and other data were collected from the Gulf of Alaska from the ALPHA HELIX from 01 December 2000 to 14 April 2001. Data include profiles of temperature, salinity, sigma-theta, fluorescence, transmissivity, and Photosynthetic Active Radiation (PAR). Data were submitted by the University of Alaska - Fairbanks; Institute of Marine Science (UAK/IMS) as part of the Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamic (GLOBEC) project.

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Twelve quadrats were sampled along 2 consecutively-placed, 25m transect lines as part of Rapid Ecological Assessments conducted at 9 sites at Kure Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands in September and October, 2002 from the NOAA vessel Townsend Cromwell (TC02-07). Raw survey data included genus presence and relative abundance, and voucher specimens. Detailed taxonomic analyses of voucher specimens are presented.

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Created as part of a 2012 BOEM study on OCS renewable energy space-use conflicts, this data contains the commercial and recreational fishing locations off the Pacific coast of Washington, Oregon and California.

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Physical, current, meteorological, and other data were collected from XBT casts, buoys, and other instruments from a World-Wide distribution. Data were collected from 24 September 2002 to 15 November 2002. Data were submitted by the Marine Environmental Data Service (MEDS) in support of the Array for Real-time Geostrophic Oceanography (Argo), the Gulf of Mexico NOAA/NMFS Ship of Opportunity (SOOP), the World Ocean Circulation Experiment (WOCE), and the Global Temperature-Salinity Pilot Project (GTSPP). Physical parameters include profiles of temperature and salinity. Current parameters include current direction and speed. Meteorological parameters include dry bulb temperature, wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, and air pressure.

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Maternal effects on the quality of progeny can have direct impacts on population productivity. Rockfish are viviparous and the oil globule size of larvae at parturition has been shown to have direct effects on time until starvation and growth rate. We sampled embryos and preparturition larvae opportunistically from 89 gravid quillback rockfish (Sebastes maliger) in Southeast Alaska. Because the developmental stage and sampling period were correlated with oil globule size, they were treated as covariates in an analysis of maternal age, length, and weight effects on oil globule size. Maternal factors were related to developmental timing for almost all sampling periods, indicating that older, longer, and heavier females develop embryos earlier than younger, shorter, or lighter ones. Oil globule diameter and maternal length and weight were statistically linked, but the relationships may not be biologically significant. Weight-specific fecundity did not increase with maternal size or age, suggesting that reproductive output does not increase more quickly as fish age and grow. Age or size truncation of a rockfish population, in which timing of parturition is related to age and size, could result in a shorter parturition season. This shortening of the parturition season could make the population vulnerable to f luctuating environmental conditions.

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To support a long-term NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) for sustainable management and conservation of coral reef ecosystems, from 8 - 29 January 2004, marine invertebrate quantitative assessments were conducted, as part of Rapid Ecological Assessments (REA), during the Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (RAMP) Cruise OES0401 in the Pacific Remote Island Areas. Such cruises are conducted at biennial intervals by the Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED) at the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC). At specific reef sites, marine invertebrate zoologists along with coral and algal biologists entered the water and conducted a fine-scale (~100 m2) and high degree of taxonomic resolution benthic REA survey for coral, algae, and key invertebrate species. Invertebrate surveys were focused on quantifying key non-coral invertebrate species common to the reef habitats, and were conducted using a combination of different survey techniques to quantify the diverse communities. These methods included belt-transect surveys, roving-swim surveys, and quadrat surveys. In belt-transect surveys, quantitative counts of key invertebrates were recorded along two consecutively-placed 25m long and 2m wide belt transects (total area = 100 m2). For any species that cannot be identified in the field, a photograph and a representative specimen, if possible, is collected for later identification. Roving-swim surveys were conducted in the general area with the goal to collect qualitative data for rare, larger, and cryptic organisms, such as Crown of Thorns Starfish and Triton's Trumpet snails which may not be seen during belt-transect surveys, and to survey any additional habitats present at the site, e.g. sand, sea grass, pavement, etc. This was accomplished by swimming a zig-zag pattern that extends roughly 5 m on either side of the two transect lines (total length = 500 m). Quadrat surveys were used to quantify the smaller, more cryptic invertebrates which were sometimes overlooked or too numerous to count during belt-transect surveys. Ten 0.25-m2 quadrats were laid out at 2-m intervals along two of the 25-m transects (total area = 5 m2). For each quadrat the percent cover of sponges, octocorals and zoanthids was recorded, as well as urchins, hermit crabs of the genus Calcinus, trapezid crabs, and coralliophilid snails. In addition, up to 25 cm diameters of all urchin species are measured. Based on data from previous REA surveys, a group of target invertebrate species was chosen for quantitative counts at 5 REA sites at Howland Island in the Pacific Remote Island Areas. The species in the list were chosen because they have been shown to be common components of the reef habitats and they are species that are generally visible (i.e.; non-cryptic) and easily enumerated during the course of a single 50-60 minute SCUBA survey.

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Optical validation data were collected using a RCV-150 remotely operated vehicle (ROV) operated by the Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL). Data were collected in the Auau Channel, Main Hawaiian Islands, to support benthic habitat mapping efforts during the HURL Ship R/V Ka'imikai-o-Kanaloa cruise in February 2009.

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Pelagic nekton communities are among the most ecologically and economically important components of marine ecosystems worldwide. From sardines and anchovies to squid and mackerel, these species are at once the object of dedicated and emerging fisheries and links connecting lower and higher trophic levels in the coastal ocean. These characteristics make an understanding of the dynamics of pelagic nekton communities fundamental to nascent ecosystem-based fisheries management efforts. There is a need to better understand the possibility of climatic variability inducing unexpected responses, such as different species co-occurring and the development of no-analog future communities. This research aims to develop new indicators that will describe how the pelagic nekton communities in the NCC have responded to climatic forcing during the period 1998-2011, with the twin goals of providing critical ecosystem information for fisheries management and expanding the availability of indicators for Integrated Ecosystem Assessments. This project will directly contribute to FATE's goal of creating indices of ecosystem properties and processes that reflect the condition of the ecosystem and the potential for changes in the distribution and habitats of the economically and ecologically important fish stocks in the California Current. This work will help support the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, as they have started to incorporate ecosystem information into fisheries management. New indicators of ecosystem conditions and properties that will describe how the pelagic nekton communities in the NCC have responded to climatic forcing during the period 1998-2011.

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This dataset contains an ESRI Grid representing the rugosity of the bathymetry of Grammanik Bank south of St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, based on a 2m bathymetric grid. Rugosity is defined as the ratio of surface area to planar area and is used as a measure of benthic terrain complexity or "roughness". Rugosity values near 1 represent flat, smooth terrain, while higher values reflect increasing rugosity or terrain roughness. For rugosity grid interpretation, is is recommended that the grid be reclassified according to standard deviation divisions. NOAA's NOS/NCCOS/CCMA Biogeography Team, in collaboration with NOAA vessel Nancy Foster and territory, federal, and private sector partners, acquired multibeam bathymetry data in the US Virgin Islands from 2/1/05 to 2/12/05. Data was acquired with a pole-mounted Reson 8101 ER multibeam echosounder (240 kHz) and processed by a NOAA contractor using CARIS HIPS v5.4 software. Data has all correctors applied (attitude, sound velocity) and has been reduced to mean lower low water (MLLW) using final approved tides and zoning from NOAA COOPS. Data is in UTM zone 20 north, datum NAD83. The processed CARIS data was used to generate a CARIS BASE surface based on swath angle. An ASCII XYZ file was exported from the BASE surface and opened in ESRI ArcMap 9 as an XY event. Then the ArcToolbox conversion tool 'Feature to Raster' was used to generate an ESRI Grid of bathymetry. The Benthic Terrain Modeller (BTM) tool, a collection of ArcGIS terrain visualization tools developed by the Oregon State University (OSU) Department of Geosciences and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center, was used to calculate the rugosity of that bathymetric grid. More information on the specific algorithms used can be found in the BTM's documentation. The project was conducted to meet IHO Order 1 and 2 accuracy standards, dependant on the project area and depth. All users should individually evaluate the suitability of this data according to their own needs and standards.

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CRED shallow Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) casts are vertical profiles (max 30 meter depth, downcast only) of temperature, conductivity and pressure. Data are collected at select nearshore locations, both around islands or banks and within lagoons. Data processing was performed using Seabird Instrument's SeaSoft SBE Data Processing Software (http://www.seabird.com/software/SBEDataProcforWindows.htm). Data format is discreet, tabular (formatted, space delimited ASCII) files for each profile, with a full header as provided by SeaSoft. Raw file extension is HEX, processed file extension is CNV. The header contains latitude, longitude and other location information, as well as all data processing steps and settings. All dates and times are UTC. All positions are WGS84 decimal degrees. Contact Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED), NOAA Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center for more information. http://www.pifsc.noaa.gov/cred/oceanography.php

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This project is a cooperative effort between the National Ocean Service, National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment, the University of Hawaii, BAE Systems Spectral Solutions and Analytical Laboratories of Hawaii, LLC. The goal of the work was to map the coral reef habitats of American Samoa, Guam and the Common Wealth of the Northern Mariana Islands by visual interpretation and manual delineation of IKONOS satellite imagery. A two tiered habitat classification system was tested and implemented in this work. It integrates geomorphologic reef structure and biological cover into a single scheme and subsets each into detail. It also includes thirteen zones. Benthic features were mapped that covered an area of 45.2 square kilometers of which 4.4 were unconsolidated sediment and 40.9 were coral reef and hard bottom. Of the coral reef and hard bottom class, 59.9% is colonized by greater than 10% coral cover.

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Habitat maps of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands were created by visual interpretation of aerial photographs using the Habitat Digitizer Extension. Aerial photographs are valuable tools for natural resource managers and researchers since they provide an excellent record of the location and extent of habitats. However, spatial distortions in aerial photographs due to such factors as camera angle, lens characteristics, and relief displacement must be accounted for during analysis to prevent incorrect measurements of area, distance, and other spatial parameters. These distortions of scale within an image can be removed through orthorectification. During orthorectification, digital scans of aerial photos are subjected to algorithms that eliminate each source of spatial distortion. The result is a georeferenced digital mosaic of several photographs with uniform scale throughout the mosaic. Features near land are generally georeferenced with greater accuracy while the accuracy of features away from land is generally not as good. Where no land is in the original photographic frame only kinematic GPS locations and image tie points were used to georeference the images. After the orthorectified mosaics were created, photointerpreters were able to accurately and reliably delineate boundaries of features in the imagery as they appear on the computer monitor.

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Toxic metals have been collected to be analyzed in laboratory in the Biscayne Bay - Florida, from 01 January 1995 to 31 December 1996. Data were submitted by the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, Florida as part of the National Status and Trends (NS&T) project.

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