California seafloor mapping reveals hidden treasures

"A program of this vast scope can't be accomplished by any one organization. By working with other government agencies, universities, and private industry the USGS could fully leverage all its resources," said USGS Pacific Region Director Mark Sogge. "Each organization brings to the table a unique and complementary set of resources, skills, and know-how."

The USGS is a key partner in the California Seafloor Mapping Program, a large, unique, and historically ambitious collaboration between state and federal agencies, academia, and the private sector to create a comprehensive base-map series for all of California's ocean waters. Scientists are collecting sonar data, video and photographic imagery, seismic surveys, and bottom-sediment data to create a series of maps of seafloor bathymetry, habitats, geology, and more, in order to inform coastal managers and planners, government entities, and researchers. With the new maps, decision makers and elected officials can better design and monitor marine reserves, evaluate ocean energy potential, understand ecosystem dynamics, recognize earthquake and tsunami hazards, regulate offshore development, and improve maritime safety.

"The Ocean Protection Council recognized early on that seafloor habitats and geology were a fundamental data gap in ocean management," said California's Secretary for Natural Resources and Ocean Protection Council Chair John Laird. "After an impressive effort by many partners to collect and interpret the data, the maps being produced now are providing pioneering science that's changing the way we manage our oceans."

"Our collaboration with the state and more than 15 other partners is critical to the success of this program. We've come together to make the maps, and then to use them. We all like to say that you can't manage it, monitor it, or model it if you don't know what the 'it' is, and our seafloor mapping gives that important 'it' to the entire coastal management and research community," said the USGS' lead researcher on this project, Sam Johnson.