Mariana Archipelago Shallow Water CTD Profiles for Coral Reef Monitoring, 2014-2025

NOAA's Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center collected vertical profiles of conductivity, temperature, and pressure in the Mariana Archipelago as part of the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program. Data from 2014, 2017, 2022, and 2025 missions include nearshore casts to ~30 meters and offshore casts to depths up to ~500 meters. Processed data includes calculated depth, salinity, and water density.

Use Cases

• Modeling water column stratification and mixing based on vertical profiles of temperature and salinity.
• Analyzing long-term changes in nearshore oceanographic conditions for coral reef health monitoring.
• Calibrating remote sensing data with in-situ conductivity-temperature-depth measurements.
• Studying spatial variability in water density across the Mariana Archipelago from offshore and nearshore casts.

Strengths

• Data collection spans over a decade, with missions in 2014, 2017, 2022, and 2025.
• Profiles include both nearshore (~30m max) and offshore (up to ~500m max) locations, providing spatial context.
• Processing uses established software (Sea-Bird Scientific SBE, RBR Ruskin, R package 'oce'), suggesting standardized outputs.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale modeling.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the specific monitoring locations in the Mariana Archipelago.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

CTD casts collected from small boats and ships during NOAA-led monitoring missions.

Time Range

2014, 2017, —2022, 2025

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-11 23:33:27.172539; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Select locations across the Mariana Archipelago