Seafloor substrate (hard and soft bottom) maps at select islands and atolls in American Samoa, the Mariana Archipelago, and the Pacific Remote Island Areas

Seafloor substrate (i.e., hard vs. soft bottom) maps from 0 to up to 50 m depths around select islands and atolls in American Samoa, the Mariana Archipelago, and the Pacific Remote Island Areas were produced by the NOAA Fisheries Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD). The islands and atolls include Tutuila, Ofu and Olosega, Tau, and Rose in American Samoa; Anatahan, Maug, Aguijan, Pagan, Rota, Tinian, Saipan, and Guam in the Mariana Archipelago; and Howland, Jarvis, Kingman, Palmyra, and Johnston in the Pacific Remote Island Areas. This is a preliminary product, derived from integrating two existing map products: hard and soft seafloor substrate maps derived from an unsupervised classification of multibeam backscatter and bathymetry derivatives produced by ESD, and shallow-water benthic habitat maps generated by the NOAA Centers for Coastal Ocean Science. The resulting maps were then updated with ESD's groundtruth data, including biological survey data and benthic cover data derived from the analysis of seafloor images. The final maps were interpolated to fill in gaps and smoothed to remove isolated pixels, and the substrate data were constrained up to 50-m depths. For the Pacific Remote Island Areas where no benthic habitat maps were available, hard and soft substrate maps were newly generated from high spatial resolution satellite images.

Tags: 467, aguihan, aguihan island (aguijan) (14n145e0006), aguihan island reefs, american samoa, anatahan, anatahan island, anatahan island (16n145e0001), aquatic habitat, bathymetry/seafloor topography, benthic, benthic habitat, biosphere, central pacific ocean, cnmi, coastal processes, commonwealth of the northern mariana islands, coral reef conservation program, coral reef ecology, coral reef ecosystem division, coral reef ecosystem program, coral reef studies, coral reefs, corals, country/territory, cred, crep, doc/noaa/nmfs/pifsc, earth science, ecosystem sciences division, equatorial pacific ocean, esd, geographic information, geomorphology, geomorphology mapping, gis product, guam, guam (13n144e0000), habitat mapping, habitats, hard seafloor substrate, howland island, howland island (00s176w0001), jarvis island (00s160w0001), johnston atoll, johnston atoll (16n169w0001), kingman reef (06n162w0001), line islands, manu'a group, mapping, mapping and ecospatial information products to support coral reef ecosystem management in the pacifi, mariana archipelago, mariana islands, marianas, marianas trench marine national monument, maug, maug island, maug island (20n145e0001), national marine fisheries service, nmfs, noaa, northern mariana islands, northern mariana islands ( cnmi ) (18n146e0000), nw pacific, ocean basin, oceans, ofu (14s169w0002), ofu island, ofu island (14s169w0013), olosega (14s169w0016), olosega island, olosega island (14s169w0014), pacific islands fisheries science center, pacific ocean, pacific remote island areas, pacific remote islands marine national monument, pagan, pagan island, pagan island (18n145e0001), palmyra atoll (05n162w0001), pifsc, pria, primnm, reef habitat, reef monitoring and assessment, rose atoll (14s168w0001), rose atoll marine national monument, rota, rota island, rota island ( luta ) (14n145e0007), saipan, saipan island, saipan island (15n145e0002), sea floor, seabed substrate, seafloor substrate, soft seafloor substrate, south pacific ocean, substrate description, ta'u island (14s169w0012), tinian, tinian island (14n145e0005), tinian island reefs, tutuila island (14s170w0016), u.s. department of commerce, united states of america, us doc, usa minor outlying islands, western pacific ocean, zoology
Organization: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce