• Oct. 21, 2014

  A team of researchers led by NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries have discovered two significant vessels from World War II's Battle of the Atlantic. The German U-boat 576 and the tanker Bluefields were found approximately 30 miles off the coast of North Carolina.

• Oct. 7, 2014

  NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard will manage the historic wreck of Diamond Shoal Lightship No. 71, the only American lightship to be sunk by enemy action during World War I.

• Sept. 16, 2014

  A team of NOAA researchers today confirmed the discovery just outside San Francisco's Golden Gate strait of the 1910 shipwreck SS Selja and an unidentified early steam tugboat wreck tagged the "mystery wreck." The researchers also located the 1863 wreck of the clipper ship Noonday, currently obscured by mud and silt on the ocean floor.

• Sept. 11, 2014

  Mariners and the public on the U.S. West Coast can now use an iPad™ and iPhone™ to help decrease the risk of injury or death to whales from ship strikes.

• Sept. 5, 2014

  NOAA today released a final rule and environmental impact statement expanding the boundaries of Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Lake Huron from 448 square miles to 4,300 square miles.

• Aug. 4, 2014

  A coalition of government, non-profit and marine industry groups today announced the launch of a new trial incentive program to slow ships down in the Santa Barbara Channel in an effort to reduce air pollution and increase protection of endangered whales.

• July 30, 2014

  NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries has selected three graduate students as recipients of the Dr. Nancy Foster Scholarship, representing such graduate-level areas of study as marine biology, oceanography, and maritime archaeology.

• July 18, 2014

  NOAA's Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary published a final rule and environmental assessment today which now permits the use of weighted marker buoys in the sanctuary, an important safety measure for recreational diving and an enhancement for recreational fishing.

• June 10, 2014

  For 40 years, the United States national marine sanctuaries have worked to protect sites ranging from a Civil War shipwreck to coral reefs and tiny atolls. Today, NOAA announced that beginning this week the American public can now nominate nationally significant marine and Great Lakes areas as potential new national marine sanctuaries.

• May 13, 2014

  NOAA announced today it has determined the probable location of the remains of the Civil War-era sidewheel steamer Planter, which gained national fame in 1862 when a group of enslaved African Americans commandeered the Confederate Navy transport ship in a daring escape to freedom.

• Apr. 30, 2014

  With seabird breeding season underway, NOAA's Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary urges coastal visitors, whether boaters and paddlers or small aircraft pilots, to avoid disturbing nesting seabirds.

• Apr. 23, 2014

  NOAA announced today the rediscovery of underwater wreck of the passenger steamer, The City of Chester, which sank in 1888 in a collision in dense fog near where the Golden Gate Bridge stands today.

• Apr. 22, 2014

  A network of coastal sites where the public can view orcas and other marine mammals from shore will be expanded to include California, NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) and The Whale Trail announced.

• Apr. 14, 2014

  NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries has released a proposal to expand the boundaries of Gulf of the Farallones (GFNMS) and Cordell Bank (CBNMS) national marine sanctuaries, two of 14 sites managed by NOAA, located off north-central California.

• Apr. 2, 2014

  NOAA today announced that the wreck of the ship Robert J. Walker, a steamer that served in the U.S. Coast Survey, a predecessor agency of NOAA's Office of Coast Survey, has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

• Mar. 28, 2014

  Emma Hickerson, research coordinator at Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, will be inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame tomorrow during a ceremony in New Jersey.

• Mar. 25, 2014

  NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries announced today its partnership with Mystic Seaport to support the 38th Voyage of the Charles W. Morgan.

• Mar. 24, 2014

  NOAA is examining potential disturbances to the health and well being of white sharks that could occur from research and tourism in Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary over the next five years, because they may disrupt the natural behavior of white sharks.

• Mar. 13, 2014

  Deep coral reefs in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM) may contain the highest percentage of fish species found nowhere else on Earth, according to a study by NOAA scientists published in the Bulletin of Marine Science.

• Feb. 27, 2014

  NOAA's Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary advises San Francisco Bay Area boaters to watch out for and steer clear of whales, which migrate into the San Francisco Bay Area in large numbers during the spring and summer.

• Jan. 29, 2014

  Yachters and sailors are invited to help scientists track the movements of endangered humpback whales between NOAA's Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary and its sister sanctuaries across the Caribbean as part of Carib Tails, a new international citizen science effort.

• Jan. 11, 2014

  The first 360-degree panoramic images from five new locations within Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM) are now live on Google Maps.