Marine debris can entangle and harm marine organisms. For air-breathing organisms, such as the green sea turtle, entanglement in debris can prevent animals from being able to swim to the surface, ...

New cooperative agreements will enable U.S. IOOS regional associations to operate regional coastal observing systems throughout U.S. waters.

VIDEO: Biological debris that falls from higher in the water column is also known as marine snow. Some flakes fall for weeks before finally reaching the ocean floor. As plants and animals near the ...

This page provides a handy reference of all ocean- and coast-related mobile websites and free applications produced by or in partnership with NOAA. A mobile website is a version of a standard website ...

The term "bathymetry" originally referred to the ocean's depth relative to sea level, although it has come to mean “submarine topography,” or the depths and shapes of underwater terrain. In the same ...

An oceanographer deploys a current meter in the 1920s while working in Alaska. Since the age of exploration, mariners have needed to know the speed and direction (velocity) of ocean currents to steer ...

Satellite photograph of the Great Barrier Reef situated off the northeastern coast of Australia. Stretching for 1,429 miles over an area of approximately 133,000 square miles , the Great Barrier Reef ...

A North Atlantic right whale mother and calf spotted off the U.S. southern coast by NOAA researchers during the 2020 breeding season. Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary in Massachusetts is a ...

Using the Global Positioning System (GPS), every point on Earth can be given its own unique address—its latitude, longitude, and height. The U.S. Department of Defense developed GPS satellites as a ...

Fascinating, elegant, and mysterious to watch in the water, take a jellyfish out of the water, and it becomes a much less fascinating blob. This is because jellyfish are about 95 percent water.

Soundings, or water depth measurements, are represented by numbers on nautical charts. Water depths are measured by soundings usually acquired by hydrographic surveys. The depths may be in either feet ...