nautical charts – Page 2 – Office of Coast Survey

February 23, 2023

NOAA releases 2023 hydrographic survey season plans

An image showing all NOAA hydrographic survey vessels.

NOAA hydrographic survey ships, navigation response teams, and contractors are preparing for the 2023 hydrographic survey season. The ships and survey vessels collect bathymetric data (i.e. map the seafloor) to support nautical charting, modeling, and research, but also collect other environmental data to support a variety of ecosystem sciences. NOAA considers hydrographic survey requests from stakeholders such as marine pilots, local port authorities, the Coast Guard, and the boating community, and also considers other hydrographic and NOAA science priorities in determining where to survey and when. Visit our “living” ArcGIS StoryMap to find out more about our mapping projects and if a hydrographic vessel will be in your area this year!

October 27, 2022

NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson completes productive field season in the Great Lakes

A graphic showing the route NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson took returning back to Norfolk, Virginia after the 2022 field season.

Although NOAA has a significant presence in the Great Lakes, this is the first time a white-hulled NOAA hydrographic ship has deployed there since the early 1990s. As a result of survey work in the Great Lakes, NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson surveyed 450 square nautical miles of lake bottom in Lake Erie – an economically important and ecologically sensitive region. The ship also surveyed 274 square nautical miles in Lake Ontario in October. In both lakes, there were 42 confirmed and new shipwrecks identified along with 22 additional features!

August 30, 2022August 30, 2022

NOAA contributes to Empowering Women in Hydrography through at-sea experience, part 2

NOAA ship Thomas Jefferson from survey launch 2904 at sunrise.

The Empowering Women in Hydrography project is a global effort led by the International Hydrographic Organization and Canada that seeks to initiate, organize and track a series of activities and initiatives which will enable more women to participate equitably in the field of hydrography and to assume leadership roles within the hydrographic community. NOAA is contributing to the project via an ‘at-sea experience’ on NOAA hydrographic ships for three women each year over the four year lifespan of the project. After a global call for nominations, three women were selected to join NOAA ships for the 2022 survey season. Chiaki Okada from the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Department, Japan Coast Guard, joined NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson from July 25 to August 6, 2022 while surveying the Great Lakes.

July 27, 2022August 29, 2022

NOAA contributes to Empowering Women in Hydrography through at-sea experience, part 1

An image showing all woman officer hydrographers standing in front of NOAA Ship Rainier.

The Empowering Women in Hydrography project is a global effort led by the International Hydrographic Organization and Canada that seeks to initiate, organize, and track a series of activities and initiatives which will enable more women to participate equitably in the field of hydrography and to assume leadership roles within the hydrographic community. NOAA is contributing to the project via an ‘at-sea experience’ on NOAA hydrographic ships for three women each year over the four year lifespan of the project. After a global call for nominations, three women were selected to join NOAA ships for the 2022 survey season. Sub-Lieutenant Mercy Modupe Ogungbamila from the Nigerian Navy joined NOAA Ship Rainier from July 5 to 15, 2022 while surveying from Guam to Saipan.

May 24, 2022

Conducting survey operations with Coast Survey’s navigation response teams

An image showing the navigation response team retrieving the survey vessel from the water.

Strategically placed around the country, NOAA’s navigation response teams―30-foot survey vessels with a three-person survey team―maintain emergency readiness while checking chart accuracy in changing ports and harbors. Navigation response teams work day-to-day in ports and harbors, collecting data to update the nation’s nautical charts. They measure depths, locate obstructions, report dangers to navigation, and update features for safe navigation. Whether there is a need to investigate wrecks, check for suspected shoals, conduct surveys for coastal management, or work with other federal agencies to support homeland security, Coast Survey’s navigation response teams have the expertise to get the job done safely and efficiently.

March 28, 2022March 31, 2022

NOAA ocean mapping and reef surveys in the Mariana Islands

NOAA Ship Rainier alongside Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. on a sunny day with white clouds in the sky.

On March 26, NOAA Ship Rainier set sail from Honolulu, Hawaii on a 3,307-nautical mile expedition to the Western Pacific. Originally planned for 2020, this will be the ship’s first multidisciplinary expedition to Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. This collaborative mission between NOAA’s National Ocean Service and National Marine Fisheries Service will deliver high‐quality data, data products, and tools to the region including a seamless map linking hilltops to underwater depths and integrated data on the surrounding coral reef ecosystems. These data can provide information for countless users to make critical management decisions within disciplines such as habitat management and restoration, tsunami modeling, monitoring, and marine resource management.

Continue reading “NOAA ocean mapping and reef surveys in the Mariana Islands”

January 24, 2022March 23, 2022

The nautical chart update process – build it and we will chart it

Nautical charts are updated with the most current information available through several processes and workflows within NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey. The large majority of these updates consist of revisions to water depth information. The bottom of a water body is changeable by nature, thus hydrographic surveys are constantly necessary to show contemporary depths in a given body of water. What doesn’t happen quite as often are changes to land along the coast, altering the way inlets, harbor entrances, and river mouths appear from a bird’s eye view. Unless there has been a catastrophic event, these changes in land are usually the result of human interaction.

November 22, 2021March 23, 2022

Backscatter and oil platforms – a Channel Islands adventure

Image showing Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, oil platforms, and the sheets covering the project area.

By HAST Bailey Schrader, Operations Officer Lt. Shelley Devereaux and HST Adriana Varchetta

After enjoying the California sunshine in San Francisco Bay, NOAA Ship Fairweather began its transit down the coast towards Santa Barbara, California. The ship would not anchor for the next sixteen days, leaving all crew on 24-hour rotations. Thankfully, the already attenuated crew was visited by augmenting scientists and hydrographers – Physical Scientist Devereaux from the Pacific Hydrographic Branch, HHST Arboleda from NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson, and HAST Schrader from NOAA Ship Rainier. Together, they traveled south to complete one of the last projects of the season, the area in and around Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.

October 18, 2021March 23, 2022

Deep fiords and hydrographic history in Glacier Bay National Park

NOAA Ship Rainier at anchor in Bartlett Cove, Glacier Bay National Park.

By Ensign Alice Beittel and Ensign Karl Wagner

Throughout the spring and summer of 2021, NOAA Ship Rainier surveyed numerous bays and inlets of Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. As one of the largest national wilderness systems and a United Nations designated World Heritage Site, Glacier Bay National Park includes over 2.7 million acres of marine, terrestrial, and freshwater ecosystems. This dynamic landscape is a living example of a never-ending cycle of geological and ecological change and adaptation. With up to 20-foot tide ranges, seasonal migrations of humpback whales and salmon, and glaciers in flux, the resilient ecosystem attracts millions of visitors each year. This year, Rainier surveyed the Beardslee Islands, Geikie Inlet, Berg Bay, Muir Inlet, Bartlett Cove, Pleasant Island, Taylor Bay, and Dundas Bay. Each survey area revealing several changes in seafloor bathymetry and bottom type. High-resolution seafloor bathymetry will be used to update nautical charts for safe navigation and serve as baseline data to support further research of this culturally and ecologically significant marine environment.

September 1, 2021March 23, 2022

Surveying the waters of Prince William Sound, Alaska

NOAA Ship Fairweather in College Fiord, Alaska

By Matt Canning and Ensign Carly Robbins, NOAA Ship Fairweather

Sheets of ice stretch for miles and miles. Mountains and peaks reach with jagged arms straight for the heavens. Snowmounds inoffensively deafening visitors in the winter months with a quiet like no other. Glacier walls and their child icebergs bobbing in the deep, cold water at every turn. Wildlife of the sky and sea of every shape and size, from Tufted Puffins and Kittlitz’s Murrelets to harbor seals and orcas – this is Prince William Sound.