Images

Helicopter on the deck of a Canadian coast guard ice breaker ship in the Arctic Ocean.

Protected Species Observer aboard CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent

Helicopter view of Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St. Laurent (top) and U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy (bottom) on the Arctic Ocean. This was during a scientific expedition to map the extended continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean.

Launching a sonobuoy receiver off the end of CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent

Oblique hillshaded-relief view of the bathymetry surrounding Martha’s Vineyard and the Upper Cape looking south across Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound

Shaded relief image of Woods Hole, MA

 Inner continental shelf sediment textures within western Massachusetts Bay classified using Barnhardt and others (1998). Bottom photographs A-D show sediment texture in select locations (photograph locations are shown as white dots on the sediment texture map).

Sediment texture and distribution data were mapped qualitatively in Esri ArcGIS using a hierarchical methodology. Backscatter data were the first input, followed by bathymetry, surficial geologic and shallow stratigraphic interpretations, and photograph and sample databases. DEM, digital elevation model.

Image showing the bathymetry of the southern Gulf of Maine with the Massachusetts coastal zone boundary outlined in grey. The images on the right display how the geophysical and sample data are combined to create an interpretation of seafloor geology

Swath bathymetry and derivative products such as slope, hillshaded relief, and rugosity maps provide information not only on water depth, but also the roughness and smoothness of the sea floor, which correlates with sea floor texture and depositional environment.

Bathymetry of of the southern Gulf of Maine with the Massachusetts coastal zone boundary outlined in grey.

Shaded relief backscatter image of a shipwreck near Cuttyhunk, MA

Photograph of a starfish on the sea floor, offshore of Duxbury to Hull, Massachusetts

Beach front houses on Fire Island, NY

Shaded relief image of Red Brook, Massachusetts Harbor

Shaded relief image of Quicks Hole, Massachusetts

A NOAA image of the bathymetry north of Puerto Rico. Two ancient submarine landslides are visible as head scarps (labeled Loiza and Arecibo Amphitheaters). Seafloor fissures are indicated by black arrows, and dashed lines outline debris flows from past failures. Map annotated by Uri ten Brink, USGS

Didemnum vexillum

Digital still photograph from Massachusetts Bay near Cohasset, MA, showing seastars (Asterias sp.), blood stars (Henricia sanguinolenta), blood drop tunicates (Dendrodoa carnea), mussels, and barnacles on cobbles and boulders covered with bubblegum algae and red filamentous algae. Water depth at this location is approximately 19.6 meters. 

Seafloor photos off MA coast

Some Boston University Marine Program students sailed on the SSV Corwith Cramer, which they saw at a nearby dock during their tour.