Atlas of the shallow-water benthic habitats of American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Ocean Service (NOS) initiated a coral reef research program in 1999 to map, assess, inventory, and monitor U.S. coral reef ecosystems (Monaco et al. 2001). These activities were implemented in response to requirements outlined in the Mapping Implementation Plan developed by the Mapping and Information Synthesis Working Group (MISWG) of the Coral Reef Task Force (CRTF) (MISWG 1999). As part of the MISWG of the CRTF, NOS' Biogeography Branch has been charged with the development and implementation of a plan to produce comprehensive digital coral-reef ecosystem maps for all U.S. States, Territories, and Commonwealths within five to seven years. Joint activities between Federal agencies are particularly important to map, research, monitor, manage, and restore coral reef ecosystems. In response to the Executive Order 13089 and the Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000, NOS is conducting research to digitally map biotic resources and coordinate a long-term monitoring program that can detect and predict change in U.S. coral reefs, and their associated habitats and biological communities. Most U.S. coral reef resources have not been digitally mapped at a scale or resolution sufficient for assessment, monitoring, and/or research to support resource management. Thus, a large portion of NOS' coral reef research activities has focused on mapping of U.S. coral reef ecosystems. The map products will provide the fundamental spatial organizing framework to implement and integrate research programs and provide the capability to effectively communicate information and results to coral reef ecosystem managers. Although the NOS coral program is relatively young, it has had tremendous success in advancing towards the goal to protect, conserve, and enhance the health of U.S. coral reef ecosystems. One objective of the program was to create benthic habitat maps to support coral reef research to enable development of products that support management needs and questions. Therefore this product was developed in collaboration with many U.S. Pacific Territory partners. An initial step in producing benthic habitat maps was the development of a habitat classification scheme. The purpose of this document is to outline the benthic habitat classification scheme and protocols used to map American Samoa, Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Thirty-two distinct benthic habitat types (i.e., four major and 14 detailed geomorphological structure classes; eight major and 18 detailed biological cover types) within eleven zones were mapped directly into a geographic information system (GIS) using visual interpretation of orthorectified IKONOS satellite imagery. Benthic features were mapped that covered an area of 263 square kilometers. In all, 281 square kilometers of unconsolidated sediment, 122 square kilometers of submerged vegetation, and 82.3 square kilometers of coral reef and colonized hardbottom were mapped.

ROV-based Deep Water Monitoring of the Northern Channel Islands Marine Protected Areas Annual Report - 2007

Research cruises were conducted in August-October 2007 to complete the third annual remotely operated vehicle (ROV)-based assessments of nearshore rocky bottom finfish at ten sites in the northern Channel Islands. Annual surveys at the Channel Islands have been conducted since 2004 at four sites and were expanded to ten sites in 2005 to monitor potential marine protected area (MPA)effects on baseline fish density. Six of the ten sites are in MPAs and four in nearby fished reference areas. In 2007 the amount of soft-only substrate on the 141 track lines surveyed was again estimated in real-time in order to target rocky bottom habitat. These real-time estimates of hard and mixed substrate for all ten sites averaged 57%, 1% more than the post-processed average of 56%. Surveys generated 69.9 km of usable video for use in finfish density calculations, with target rocky bottom habitat accounting for 56% (39.1 km) for all sites combined. The amount of rocky habitat sampled by site averaged 3.8 km and ranged from 3.3 km sampled at South Point, a State Marine Reserve (SMR) off Santa Rosa Island, to 4.7 km at Anacapa Island SMR. A sampling goal of 75 transects at all 10 sites was met using real-time habitat estimates combined with precautionary over-sampling by 10%. A total of seventy kilometers of sampling is projected to produce at least seventy-five 100 m2 transects per site. Thirteen of 26 finfish taxa observed were selected for quantitative evaluation over the time series based on a minimum criterion of abundance (0.05/100 m2). Ten of these 13 finfish appear to be more abundant at the state marine reserves relative to fished areas when densities were averaged across the 2005 to 2007 period. One of the species that appears to be more abundant in fished areas was señorita, a relatively small prey species that is not a commercial or recreational target. (PDF contains 83 pages.)

Vegetation of Asuncion : a volcanic Northern Mariana Island /

Includes bibliographical references (p. 11).

Tide tables, Gilbert, Marshall, Caroline and Mariana Islands for the year 1946.

Mode of access: Internet.

Description of manganese deposits from the Papago mine, Saipan, Mariana Islands

Saipan, situated about 15° N. and 146° E., is one of the larger and more southerly of the Mariana Islands. The 15 small islands of this chain are strung along an eastwardly convex ridge for more than 400 miles north to south, midway between Honshu and New Guinea and about 1,200 miles east of the Philippines. Paralleling this ridge 60 to 100 miles further east is a deep submarine trench, beyond which lies the Pacific Basin proper. To the west is the Philippine Sea, generally deeper than 2,000 fathoms. The trench coincides with a zone of negative gravity anomalies, earthquake foci occur at increasing depths westward from it, and silica- and alumina-rich volcanic rocks characterize the emergent island chain itself. The contrast between these features and those of the Pacific Basin proper to the east is held to favor the conclusion that the Mariana island arc and trench define the structural and petrographic front of Asia.

Re-estimation of small-scale fishery catches for U.S. flag-associated island areas in the western Pacific: the last 50 years

Nearshore fisheries in the tropical Pacific play an important role, both culturally and as a reliable source of food security, but often remain under-reported in statistics, leading to undervaluation of their importance to communities. We re-estimated nonpelagic catches for Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), and summarize previous work for American Samoa for 1950−2002. For all islands combined, catches declined by 77%, contrasting with increasing trends indicated by reported data. For individual island entities, re-estima-tion suggested declines of 86%, 54%, and 79% for Guam, CNMI, and American Samoa, respectively. Except for Guam, reported data primarily represented commercial catches, and hence under-represented contributions by subsistence and recreational fisheries. Guam’s consistent use of creel surveys for data collection resulted in the most reliable reported catches for any of the islands considered. Our re-estimation makes the scale of under-reporting of total catches evident, and provides valuable baselines of likely historic patterns in fisheries catches.

The Western Pacific Fishery Information Network: A Fisheries Information System

The Western Pacific Fishery Information Network (WPACFlN) is an intergovernmental agency cooperative program sponsored by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to help participating island fisheries agencies carry out data collection, analysis, reporting programs, and data management activities to better support fisheries management under the Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act; and to help meet local fisheries information and management needs. The WPACFlN is the central source of information for Federal fisheries management of most fisheries in American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands, and it plays an important role in acquiring fisheries data in Hawaii. This paper describes the development and status of this fishery information system.

Ley de libre determinación moderna y la 'cuarta opción': Ley internacional y de Estados Unidos

Conforme a las resoluciones de la ONU 1514 y 1541 (1960), usualmente se discuten solo tres formas de autodeterminación de los pueblos: la independencia, la integración y la libre asociación. En 1970, la Resolución 2625 amplió ese lenguaje, añadiendo una cuarta vía: “La adquisición de cualquier otra condición política libremente decidida por un pueblo”. La Resolución 2625 y resoluciones posteriores plantean un marco de libertad de petición y negociación que no limita la búsqueda de soluciones razonables y realistas a las aspiraciones legítimas de progreso político, cultural y económico de un pueblo.La monografía también discute estas normas desde la perspectiva del Derecho Constitucional de los Estados Unidos, concluyendo que ese corpus jurisprudencial también reconoce y permite diversas formas de organización política “soberana” más allá de los estados de la Unión, pueblos o jurisdicciones con diversos grados de autonomía, desde las tribus o naciones indias, hasta los Estados libres asociados, consistentes con el espíritu y letra de la Resolución 2625 y su progenie.

A new genus and new species of fan worms (Polychaeta: Sabellidae) from Atlantic and Pacific Oceans-the formal treatment of taxon names as explanatory hypotheses

Members of Parasabella minuta Treadwell, 1941, subsequently moved to Perkinsiana, were collected during a survey of rocky intertidal polychaetes along the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Additional specimens, which are referred to two new species, were also found in similar habitats from the Bocas del Toro Archipelago, Caribbean Panama, and Oahu Island, Hawaii. A phylogenetic analysis of Sabellinae, including members of P. minuta and the two new species, provided justification for establishing a new generic hypothesis, Sabellomma gen. nov., for these individuals. Formal definitions are also provided for Sabellomma minuta gen. nov., comb. nov., S. collinae gen. nov., spec. nov., and S. harrisae gen. nov., spec. nov., along with descriptions of individuals to which these hypotheses apply. The generic name Aracia nom. nov., is provided to replace Kirkia Nogueira, Lopez and Rossi, 2004, pre-occupied by a mollusk.

Indian Ocean Region, ca. 1690 (Raster Image)

This layer is a georeferenced raster image of the historic paper map entitled: Nova tabula Indiae Orientalis. It was published by Carolus Allard excudit, between 1690 and 1710. Scale [ca. 1:5,500,000]. Covers the Indian Ocean Region. Map in Latin. The image inside the map neatline is georeferenced to the surface of the earth and fit to the World Miller Cylindrical projected coordinate system. All map collar and inset information is also available as part of the raster image, including any inset maps, profiles, statistical tables, directories, text, illustrations, index maps, legends, or other information associated with the principal map. This map shows features such as drainage, roads, cities and other human settlements, territorial boundaries, shoreline features, and more. Relief shown pictorially.This layer is part of a selection of digitally scanned and georeferenced historic maps from the Harvard Map Collection. These maps typically portray both natural and manmade features. The selection represents a range of originators, ground condition dates, scales, and map purposes.