This website is designed to provide the public with information on ocean exploration activities, in particular those undertaken via funding from NOAA Ocean Exploration. This page describes the general purposes of the site and its organization, summarizes editorial policies, and provides brief technical and navigational information.
This website is designed to be engaging and educational for all who wish to learn about, discover, and virtually explore the ocean realm. The site is primarily directed to the general public, educators and students, the science community, and members of the media. Other important audiences for the site include nongovernmental organizations, resource managers, ocean exploration groups, and policy makers.
The site is organized into seven sections. The centerpiece of the website is “Expeditions.” Here, expeditions funded by NOAA Ocean Exploration, including those on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, are documented through a series of background essays, mission logs, and images and videos. In “About Us,” learn more about our office, who we work with and how, and funding opportunities. The “Science and Technology” section of the site includes information on technology project we support, descriptions of many of the science and technology tools used in ocean exploration, and an overview of the history of ocean exploration. The “Data and Products” section of the site provides access to data collected during NOAA Ocean Exploration-led or-funded expeditions, summaries of expedition results, and information on publications resulting from missions. Under “Education,” you can access lesson plans connected to expeditions as well as information about professional development opportunities and other resources for educators and information on different ocean exploration career opportunities. The “Multimedia” section provides access to image and video galleries and interactive materials. And finally, the “News” section includes a NOAA Ocean Exploration media kit, updates on office activities, and highlights of ocean exploration news around the science community.
Every attempt has been made to make this website compliant with Section 508 of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Additionally, we have provided a link to a detailed Site Index at the bottom of every page. This index provides a direct link to every page in the site for simple text navigation.
We would appreciate knowing of any specific accessibility problems that we might have missed or suggestions you might have on how we could improve this site's access. Please send comments and suggestions to the NOAA Ocean Exploration Webmaster.
This site is managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. As a federal government website, all federal editorial policies apply, such as those on privacy, copyright, commercial promotion, etc.
Information presented on this website is considered public information and may be distributed freely. If you elect to use materials from this site, please cite NOAA as the source and include the appropriate URL of the page(s) from which the materials were taken. Note: Select copyrighted images have been contributed to the site. These copyrights are mentioned in image captions. If you would like to reproduce these images, you must contact the contributing source for approval.
Materials posted on this site are reviewed by professional staff prior to publishing. Final decisions are made by the website manager.
Access Time
Some pages on this site contain several images and/or videos. The purpose of this content is to provide necessary visual supplements for the text (e.g., maps of exploration routes) and enhance the visual appeal of the page. All images and videos have captions that allow those readers who do not load images immediately to select specific images/videos for viewing. Pages have been developed to load text first.
Links
Some links are provided to other websites as reference or supplemental material. External sites accessed by such links will appear in a separate window. A limited number of links to non-U.S. government sites are included on this site; links to external, non-government websites are annotated with an icon, ex. google.com .
Fonts and Type Sizes
Roboto and Roboto Slab are the default fonts for this site. All browsers allow users to select specific fonts and type sizes for display. Some users select large type sizes for ease of reading or specific fonts for personal tastes. The text and layout should not be adversely affected by a user's selection of alternative fonts and type sizes.
Printing Pages
This site has been designed to ensure simple printing. We recommend printing in portrait format at a scale of 85 to 100 percent.
Navigation
Navigation through the site is straightforward. There are four levels of navigation. The first level is access to the major sections of the site at the top of the page, under the main banner. The second level is via breadcrumb navigation, located between the top-level navigation and web page main heading. The third level is in the right-hand column of the page. The fourth level includes text links within page content. These links take the user to external links related to the topic of the page or to supplement pages within the website.
Site Index and Search Function
Use the Site Index or Search function to provide additional assistance in accessing site content. The Site Index is a complete listing of every page on the site. Search function, located in the banner of the site, is a standard word/phrase search through all content available on the site's pages.
Advanced Features (Audio, Video, and Animations)
The site includes many audio and video clips. These are provided as mp4 files and should play on most browsers.
Some documents are available on this site as downloadable files in Portable Document Format (pdf). Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view these files; Adobe Acrobat Reader can be downloaded for free .
There are some known issues with downloading PDF documents, particularly on Windows systems, due to conflicting changes in the way in which Acrobat Reader and various browsers talk to one another. But there is a simple work-around: if you right-click (Windows) or option-click (Macintosh) on the link, the entire file will be sent to your machine, and then you can open it off your own hard drive using Acrobat Reader.