A biologist from the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary uses a glue gun to reattach a piece of living coral broken loose when a boat went aground on the shallow coral reef.

The NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson prepares to bring aboard one of its launches after a day of hydrographic surveying in Long Island Sound. In 2012, the Thomas Jefferson and its two launches are working in a collaborative effort with the states of Connecticut and New York, to gather data that will help guide policy decisions about future uses of the sea floor, as well as to update nautical charts.

Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary Naturalist Corps volunteers support a whale watching expedition. (Image courtesy of Bob Perry, Condor Express)

The NOAA Ship Fairweather is named after Mt. Fairweather, located in Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve along the U.S.-Canada border. Mt. Fairweather was named by Captain Cook in 1778, presumably because of the good weather encountered at the time of his visit. Fairweather conducted a 2012 reconnaissance mission to help NOAA prioritize its efforts to update navigational charts in the Arctic.

NOAA’s newest survey vessel is the Ferninand R. Hassler. Hassler is a state-of-the-art coastal mapping vessel designed to detect and monitor changes to the sea floor. Data collected by the ship will be used to update nautical charts, detect potential hazards to navigation, and further enhance our understanding of the ever-changing marine environment.

The students of NOAA Climate Stewards participate in a variety of activities, ranging from planting and maintaining a garden in Maryland (shown here), to growing native sea grasses in rural Louisiana, to water quality testing in Hawaii.

NOAA Restoration Day is one of the largest voluntary federal employee-sponsored environmental stewardship events in the Chesapeake Bay watershed region. The event is organized by the National Ocean Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Let NOAA staff inspire you! NOAA employees volunteer in a number of ways, including the Marine Animal Rescue Program at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. Here, volunteers release a rehabilitated harbor seal named Hopper.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn joins Dr. Jane Lubchenco, NOAA Administrator; David Kennedy, NOS Assistant Administrator; Marc Miller, Illinois Department of Natural Resources Director; and Senator Richard Durbin at signing ceremony on March 9, 2012, to approve the new Illinois Coastal Management Program.

A view of the new "Gateway to NOAA," a permanent exhibit now open in Silver Spring, Maryland. The exhibit--only steps away from the Silver Spring Metro stop--features breathtaking imagery, multimedia presentations, and amazing artifacts that illustrate how NOAA has, since its earliest history, sought to increase people's understanding of the land, the sea, and the sky.

Spectators look on as homemade cardboard boats race across the Thunder Bay River in Michigan during the 1st annual Cardboard Boat Regatta on July 4, 2011. The Regatta is part of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary Maritime Festival, a celebration of the area's rich maritime heritage and America's birthday!

Students from Adelante Elementary School in Santa Barbara, Calif., conducted a point-to-point live broadcast with Aquanauts, scientists, and educators from 60-feet underwater and topside in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary during the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries' 'Aquarius 2010: If Reefs Could Talk' mission in October, 2010. Check out the mission log online.

Aquarius Reef Base, the world's only undersea research station, is located within Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Aquarius is home to scientists for missions up to 10 days long and is made to withstand the pressure of ocean depths to 120 feet deep.

Several NOAA volunteers plant Switch Grass previously grown in 26 NOAA offices on a newly created Living Shoreline during the 2010 NOAA Restoration Day event at the NOAA Cooperative Oxford Lab in Oxford, Maryland.

Rapture Reef sits within the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument, which was created in 2006. One hundred times larger than Yellowstone National Park, the monument encompasses more than 140,000 square miles of ocean and coral reef habitat. It is the single largest fully protected marine conservation area in the world. Image credit: Robert Schwemmer, NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries

Employees of the National Geodetic Survey conducted leveling to check the stability of the Washington Monument for the National Park Service in the winter of 2008-2009.

Staff from the National Geodetic Survey undertakes a GRAV-D flight to collect aerial gravity data over the Gulf Coast in the spring of 2009.

Horse-eye jacks (Caranx latus) swim by an NOS diver during a safety stop.

NOS marine mammal forensic scientist Kathy Moore uses calipers to measure sea turtle eggs.

A NOAA archaeologist photographs a wreck site in Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary using specially a constructed sled mounted with a high-resolution camera.

Staff from NOAA's Office of Response & Restoration conduct a shoreline shoreline assessment in Dec. 2004, following the M/V Selendang Ayu oil spill.

NOAA Ship Fairweather in Kachemak Bay, Alaska. The Fairweather is designed and outfitted primarily for conducting hydrographic surveys in support of nautical charting, but the ship is capable of many other missions in support of NOAA programs. The Fairweather is equipped with the latest in hydrographic survey technology — multi-beam survey systems; high-speed, high-resolution side-scan sonar; position and orientation systems; hydrographic survey launches; and an on-board data-processing server. The Fairweather is named for Mt. Fairweather in southeast Alaska, which is the highest peak in the Fairweather Range -- the tallest coastal range on Earth.

NOAA's National Geodetic Survey employees level to a pier as part of a larger island-wide project to provide St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands with a vertical datum.

Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services National Current Observation Program conducted several major surveys of tidal currents in response to user requests. Data has been collected in southeast Alaska since 2001 to help update tidal current predictions critical to safe navigation and other applications that are published annually in the U.S. Tidal Current Tables. Here, scientists deploy current meter buoys and anchors used for the surveys.

Divers from the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and Eastern Carolina University photograph the German U-boat U-352. U-352 was surveyed off the coast of Morehead City, N.C., during the Battle of the Atlantic Expedition Summer 2008. The wreck site was surveyed using traditional archaeological mapping techniques coupled with video and photographic documentation. The site was discovered in the 1970s and has suffered the effects of storms, time, and looters. NOAA's objective during the survey was to map the site in detail and to assess its historical significance and archaeological integrity. NOAA divers used various technologies to document the sites, including employing underwater cameras and sonar to create a photo-mosaic of the wreck.

For decades, hazardous substances released through storm drains from area industries contaminated Commencement Bay and its waterways and sediments. In October 1991, NOAA and its co-trustees began a damage assessment and restoration planning process to restore injured resources such as wetlands and salmon habitat in this Washington State area.

This photo shows an aerial view of Waldenberg Park and skimmers following a massive oil spill in 2007. The Cosco Busan, a container ship, dumped 58,000 gallons of oil after striking the San Francisco Bay bridge in Calif. Oil streamers are a result from the lifting of the damaged barge.

Monthly grass shrimp population monitoring being conducted at a former Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site at Shipyard Creek, Charleston, South Carolina. Grass shrimp are used as a sentinel of salt-marsh ecosystem health.

An employee from the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services installs an air gap sensor which measures bridge clearance on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, New York. The sensors take readings every six minutes to account for changes in water level, volume of traffic crossing the bridges, and air temperature, all of which cause bridge clearance to fluctuate. As ships become taller, some are passing under bridges with just inches to spare. This new capability is available through NOAA's Physical Oceanographic Real-time System, which provides quality-controlled oceanographic and weather data at U.S. seaports to aid navigation.

Scientists from the Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research begin necropsy of two pygmy killer whales. Samples were collected from these two rarely seen animals for biotoxin analysis, contaminant analysis, and histopathology to determine the causes of death.

On June 2, 2008, hundreds of NOAA employees and partners participated in the 5th annual NOAA Restoration Day in two separate events -- one in Maryland and the other in Virginia. This event has grown every year as NOAA employees in Maryland and Virginia work to restore habitat at two important sites in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

A biologist from the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary photographs the damage done to a coral reef from a boat that grounded on the reef. An elkhorn coral branch broken in the incident appears in the foreground.

The RV Sam Gray, a vessel operated by Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary, assisting in the Battle of the Atlantic Expedition Summer 2008. NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, in collaboration with the National Park Service, Minerals Management Service, East Carolina University, the University of North Carolina Coastal Studies Institute, and the State of North Carolina, conducted this archaeological expedition to survey ships sunk off the coast of North Carolina during World War II.

A scientist from the Minerals Management Service surveys the German U-boat U-701 during the Battle of the Atlantic Expedition Summer 2008 off the coast of North Carolina. The 2008 summer expedition was the first part of a larger multi-year project to research and document a number of historically significant shipwrecks tragically lost during WWII. The project is dedicated to raising awareness of the war that was fought so close to the American coastline and to preserving our nation's maritime history.

A scientist from the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary participates in a site visit to the 1887 shipwreck Slobodna in the Upper Region of the Sanctuary.

An employee from the Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services installs an air gap sensor which measures bridge clearance on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, New York. The sensor is part of the New York/New Jersey Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System. Information from the sensor is critical for under-bridge clearance, as ships continue to maximize channel depths and widths while, at the same time, push the bounds of bridge heights.

Scientists at the Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research in Charleston, South Carolina, draw up a water sample for chemical analysis. The sample is being drawn from a simulated salt-marsh ecosystem that has been exposed to an herbicide to study its fate and effects in a coastal environment.