About the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program

USGS crew members hauling a sampling net over an eelgrass bed on Bainbridge Island, Washington. USGS photograph by David Ayers.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) works with many and varied partners to ensure that our Nation has the information it needs to understand, restore and protect healthy coastal and ocean resources and the communities who depend on them.

More than half of our Nation's population lives within 50 miles of the coast, along productive estuaries and extensive coastlines of the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the Caribbean Sea. Healthy coastal and offshore resources are vital to our nation's economy through energy, commerce and shipping, fisheries, tourism and recreation. We rely on new technologies, scientific data and analysis to support the wise use and protection of these resources and also inform policies and decisions that prepare us for extreme events, natural hazards, and climate change.

Coastal and marine geology expertise contributes to the greater USGS mission of providing impartial information on the health of our ecosystems and environment, the natural hazards that threaten us, the natural resources we rely on, the impacts of climate and land-use change, and the core science systems that help us provide timely, relevant, and usable information.

Major science centers are located in Woods Hole, Massachusetts; Santa Cruz and Menlo Park, California; and St. Petersburg, Florida. Administrative offices are in Reston, Virginia.