Reefs sites of interest for NOAA's Mission: Iconic Reefs

Iconic Reefs sites of interest for Mission: Iconic Reefs. USGS has conducted SQUID-5 mapping operations at Eastern Dry Rocks and Looe Key Reef as of August 2021.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS) is particularly interested in USGS' SQUID-5 work due to its applicability to the new Mission: Iconic Reefs—one of the world’s largest coral reef restoration projects, certainly the largest in the US. The 3-dimensional maps created by the USGS team will be critical to this restoration effort. The Sanctuary plans to plant corals across more than 800,000 m² of reef habitat across seven “iconic reefs”–sites that represent the iconic diversity and productivity of Florida Keys coral reefs.