BATHYMETRIC SURVEY EQUIPMENT

Members of NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey and National Geodetic Survey, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands’ Port Authority and Department of Lands and Natural Resources are shown at the Port of Saipan during an Integrated Ocean and Coastal Mapping project in CNMI in May 2007. The project, a collaborative effort between OCS, National Marine Fisheries Service, Coral Reef Conservation Program and NGS, was in response to a critical request from the United States Navy to provided contemporary hydrographic survey data to update the nautical charts. The Navy requires Saipan Harbor to be a primary port-of call for naval surface and submarine vessels. The team has just completed a geodetic leveling run to a tertiary tidal gauge; data from the tide gauge will be used to vertically correct the bathymetric soundings.

Shown from Left to Right: Alfonso Delacruz (DLNR), Miguel Sablan (CPA), Lee Cabrera (CPA), Efrain Guererro (DLNR), Erin Campbell (OCS), Osgar Masga (DLNR), Corey Allen (OCS), Jesse Deguererro (DLNR), Ed Carlson (NGS), and Kurt Brown (OCS).

This globe has been rendered using both the Planetary Visions Satellite Imagemap, and worldwide bathymetry data.
The Satellite Imagemap is a highly realistic texture map of the Earth's entire surface. Derived from thousands of Earth-observation satellite images, the Satellite Imagemap represents an accurate and detailed portrait of our world at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The worldwide bathymetry data represents one of the most detailed models of the global seafloor yet assembled - a unique combination of the latest satellite-derived gravity measurements with digital bathymetric charts based on more than a hundred years of ship-borne hydrographic surveys.

Higher resolutions are available on request.