Salish Sea Seafloor & Habitat Maps
Underwater geography has a huge influence on the Salish Sea ecosystem.
We're excited to share with you maps and publications about the underwater geography of the San Juan Islands and Georgia Basin.
Click here for detailed versions of the bathymetric, backscatter, and habitat maps (1:50,000 series).
Watch the video to get an introduction to the maps:
Salish Sea Ecosystem
The Puget Sound Basin is only one half of a 17,000 sq. km. ecosystem, the Salish Sea. Efforts to restore Puget Sound or the Georgia Basin will fail the U.S. and Canada do not improve cross-border collaboration. Map: N. Maher
Bathymetry of the San Juan Islands
This bathymetric map of the San Juan Islands shows the depth of the water throughout the islands.
Originally published within "Geology and Seafloor Bathymetry of the San Juan Islands" produced by Greene, H.G,. Dieter, B., Endris, C. Lopez, H., Murai, L., and Erdey, M. of the Center for Habitat Studies, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.
You can download the entire 11.7MB file using the link above.
Geology and Bathymetry of the San Juan Islands
Originally published within "Geology and Seafloor Bathymetry of the San Juan Islands" produced by Greene, H.G,. Dieter, B., Endris, C. Lopez, H., Murai, L., and Erdey, M. of the Center for Habitat Studies, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.
You can download the entire 11.7MB file using the link above.
SeaDoc Gear
Support the SeaDoc Society by purchasing an extraordinary bathymetric map of the San Juan Islands. This map shows not only land formations from satellite imagery, but also seafloor depth and features. This is the 2nd edition of the map, updated with new high resolution seafloor imagery. Map overlay includes ferry routes, state parks, airstrips, marinas, lighthouses, and other features of interest. This map was produced in cooperation with the SeaDoc Society and $4.00 of each map sale goes to help fund research and conservation projects in the area. Printed on premium 80# cover stock. For more information and to purchase, visit TahoeMaps.com.
Google Earth Maps
If you've ever used Google Earth you know how stunning it is to be able to "fly" to any location on the globe and explore the local topography.
But you've probably noticed that Google Earth doesn't have underwater data.
Now you can "see" underwater with a bathymetric overlay that you can view in Google Earth. It's the same data used in SeaDoc's beautiful wall map, but it's an entirely different experience to move through the underwater landscape instead of just looking at it in two dimensions.
Curious what this might look like? We have a low-resolution movie that takes you on a flying journey from Friday Harbor to Eastsound. It's grainy (unlike the real thing).
Watch the "flythrough" movie.
Or you can go straight to our page of Google Earth overlays showing seafloor geography.
Complete instructions are on that page. You'll need to install Google Earth on your computer (it's free) and then download the overlay map. The files are big, so you'll want to make sure you're on a fast internet connection.
Detailed Salish Sea Maps: Bathymetry, Backscatter, Habitat
The following maps were produced by the Center for Habitat Studies at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in cooperation with Tombolo, the SeaDoc Society, Natural Resources Canada, and the Canadian Hydrographic Service.
Each quadrant has three maps: bathymetry, backscatter, and habitat
You can download each map individually or get a zip package containing all the maps (70mb).
Quadrant 1:
Quadrant 2:
Quadrant 3:
Quadrant 4: