Larry Mayer, director of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping and co-director of the Joint Hydrographic Center, is the chief scientist for the U.S. mission. NOAA's Andy Armstrong, a physical scientist and co-director of the Joint Hydrographic Center, is the co-chief scientist. NOAA and the University of New Hampshire jointly operate the Joint Hydrographic Center. The 41-day joint mission runs from August 7 to September 16 and will see the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy and the Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St-Laurent operating together to obtain a variety of data.

A joint U.S.-Canada expedition sailing next month to the icy waters off the northern coastline both countries share will help map the farthest reaches of the North American continent, but it won't deal with a long-running dispute over a resource-rich part of the Beaufort Sea. "The primary thing this mission is designed to answer is 'Where is the edge of the continental shelf?' " said Maggie Hayes, director of the U.S. Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs.

More and More. Sonar mapping of the Arctic seafloor (colored lines) has pushed outward by almost 200 km the "foot of slope" that is a benchmark for the outer edge of potential U.S. mineral rights. CREDIT: IMAGE CREATED BY LARRY MAYER; DATA COLLECTED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE CENTER FOR COASTAL AND OCEAN MAPPING/JOINT HYDROGRAPHIC CENTER; BASE MAP IS IBCAO COMPILATION (JAKOBSSON ET AL., 2008)

Changes in the Arctic environment—no matter the cause—are a great national security concern... Working in conjunction with NOAA's Office of the Coast Survey and the University of New Hampshire's Joint Hydrographic Center, the breaker's multi-beam sonar and sub-bottom profiler were used to better define the extent of the U.S. continental shelf.

The Canadian broadcasting team has produced an one-hour documentary following the greatly intensified push by Russia, the United States, Denmark, Canada and others to map and exert hegemony over Arctic waters. They provided us with a short distillation that includes nice interviews with Larry Mayer of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire, who I’ve been interviewing periodically as he leads surveys of Arctic sea-bed formations that could extend United States economic control in the region.

After clicking on the link, scroll down the page to the blog 'Arctic Riches' to read about Larry Mayer and other CCOM scientists who have just returned from their latest mission to map the Arctic sea floor.

“This is a wonderful example of being able to do things that are good for the nation at the same time that science is being advanced,” Mayer said.

Larry Mayer is quoted about his work on mapping the Chukchi Cap which has yielded surprising results regarding the Convention of the Law of the Sea Article 76 for natural prolongation and extension of the continental shelf. (The article starts on page 22).

GeoCoastPilot is a joint venture of NOAA and the Data Visualization Research Lab at the—stand by for a mouth full—University of New Hampshire’s Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping (CCOM)/ Joint Hydrographic Center (JHC). The researchers are looking for feedback on, um, how well they let you visualize the data.

UNH AT SEA UNH has made plenty of enduring contributions to marine research; just last February, the university’s Center for Coastal and Oceanic Mapping/Joint Hydrographic Center revealed .... read more

Larry Mayer, a university scientist, said melting sea ice, presumably from global warming, helped last year's mission. "It was bad for the Arctic, but very very good for mapping."