Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

OBIS-USA is the US National Node for data contributed to Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS), found at www.obis.org, which is the best and most efficient way to access OBIS-USA data. Additional information about accessing data can be found via the OBIS manual.

For any user interested in accessing the datasets as they are before OBIS harvests them, our OBIS-USA Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) houses all of the data we submit to OBIS and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Or for more information on how a particular dataset was processed for inclusion in OBIS via OBIS-USA look for a page for that dataset in the USGS ScienceBase OBIS-USA Source Data community.

Data Standards

OBIS-USA brings data and metadata together using international standards for consistent meaning and usability for applications. Data contained in OBIS-USA are mapped to the ratified Darwin Core standard and scientific names are aligned with the World Register of Marine Species.