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NOS ArcIMS Map Service Screen Shot


NOS survey descriptive report image
descriptive report
(.pdf of sample pages)



NOS Hydrographic Survey Data

The National Ocean Service (NOS) Hydrographic Data Base (NOSHDB), maintained by NGDC in conjunction with NOS, provides extensive survey coverage of the coastal waters and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the United States and its territories. The NOSHDB contains data digitized from smooth sheets of hydrographic surveys completed between 1851 and 1965, and from survey data acquired digitally on NOS survey vessels since 1965.

Over 76 million soundings from over 6600 surveys are now included in the NOSHDB. These data may be searched and downloaded online using the Hydrographic Survey Data Map Service (an interactive map and data discovery tool at NGDC). The NOSHDB data with search and retrieval software are also available on a DVD-ROM or CD-ROM set.

Data products from NOS surveys, including Descriptive Reports (DRs), smooth sheet images, survey data images, textual gridded data, and sidescan sonar mosaics, are available for download from NGDC using the Hydrographic Survey Data Map Service.

NOS DRs are approved metadata documents relevant to survey level hydrographic data and are available in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). The DR serves as a narrative document that describes the conditions under which the work was performed and discusses various factors affecting the adequacy and accuracy of the results.

NOS smooth sheets are available from NGDC as images in TIFF or SID format. A smooth sheet is the final, neatly drafted, accurate plot of a hydrographic survey using verified or corrected data.

NGDC archives and disseminates over 11,000 smooth sheets and over 8,000 DRs dating from the mid-1800s to the present. The survey data images, gridded data, and sidescan sonar mosaics are available only for recent surveys where high-resolution data was collected.

Related Links:

NOS Shallow Water Multibeam 3d image
multibeam survey 3d image

1950s NOS Smooth sheet image
typical 1950s smooth sheet

2000s NOS smooth sheet caption
2000s smooth sheet caption

NOS sidescan sonar mosaic image
sidescan sonar mosaic