The National Marine Sanctuary Program identifies, designates and manages areas of the marine environment of special national significance due to their conservation, recreational, ecological, historical, research, educational, or aesthetic qualities. Access information and pictures of marine sanctuaries all over the U.S. and its territories. Discover ways to get involved with the sanctuary program, ... Full description.

Classroom activities based on how scientists study active volcanoes on the deep ocean floor. Activities include: locating an earthquake epicenter, recording geological and biological information during an ocean floor traverse, creating cross-section profiles of the ocean floor, and graphing seafloor data. Resources include videos and teacher guides. Full description.

With the explicit mission of saving lives and improving economic efficiency by issuing the best watches, warnings, forecasts and analyses of hazardous tropical weather, this site features continuous watch on tropical cyclones from 15 May in the eastern Pacific and 1 June in the Atlantic through November 30. The Center issues forecasts, watches and warnings within text advisories and graphical products. ... Full description.

CORMP's goal is to provide an interdisciplinary science-based framework that supports sound public policy leading to wise coastal use, sustainable fisheries and improved coastal ocean ecosystem health. This site features an easy to use interactive map with real time and archived buoy and weather station data for southern North Carolina and South Carolina. The site also includes teacher resources including ... Full description.

Search the 2-minute gridded global relief data and images to get ocean and land areas, 30-second gridded land topography, or archived 5-minute gridded global relief data for your area of choice. Read the geographic selection information for directions on how to select an area. Full description.

CenGOOS operates a clearinghouse of buoys in the central Gulf of Mexico. Mousing over the buoys on the map reveals ownership and location information. Clicking on the buoy opens a new window complete with data profile. CenGOOS operates one buoy in the Gulf. Measured parameters of the CenGOOS buoy include air and water temperature, wind speed and direction, humidity, barometric pressure, salinity, ... Full description.

Excellent images of ocean topography, continental margins, crustal age, Great Lakes bathymetry, plus images of available posters and slide sets. Downloadable animations also available. Links to other NOAA resources. Full description.

A web portal to real-time, GIS-based coastal observations and NOAA forecasts. Select location and specify: meteorology, oceanography, river, water quality or other observations; tidal predictions, weather or ocean condition forecasts. You can choose in situ or remote sensing data collection systems, overlap different types of observations and forecast information on a single map, compare several data ... Full description.

Links to real-time and historical oceanographic and weather data collected throughout the Gulf of Maine. Data includes: surface current speed and direction; wave direction height and period; ocean temperature; chlorophyll levels; winds; contaminants monitoring; and more. On-line teaching unit applies data to predict a phytoplankton bloom. Data presented using creative graphics and tables, background ... Full description.

NOS measures and predicts coastal and ocean phenomena, protects large areas of the oceans, and works to ensure safe navigation. Educator information includes Discovery Kits, which consist of 4 different classroom units on corals, estuaries, geodesy, and tides and water levels, Discovery Stories, 2 case studies concerning the Exxon Valdez incident and the lionfish invasion occurring along the U.S. ... Full description.