Theme 1: Environmental Quality and Preservation

To understand sediment and pollutant erosion, transport and deposition, fragile environments, the importance to the nation of sea-and lake-floor environments as biological habitats, and as record keepers of long-term environmental change.

Subtheme 1: Pollution and Waste Disposal

Subtheme 2: Fragile Environments

Subtheme 3: Marine Reserves and Habitats

Theme 2: Natural Hazards end Public Safety

To better understand the frequency and distribution of catastrophic events that elicit federal response (storms, earthquakes, and landslides), the geologic processes acting in the affected marine and coastal regions (e.g., coastal erosion), and the local and regional susceptibility to change.

Subtheme 1: Coastal and Nearshore Erosion

Subtheme 2: Earthquakes, Tsunamis, and Landslides

Theme 3: Natural Resources

To develop and extend understanding of the formation, location, and geologic setting of offshore mineral and petroleum resources, the geologic effects of resource extraction, and how offshore resource occurrence can help in the search for analogous onshore deposits of economic significance (could address areas outside the EEZ).

Subtheme 1: Water Resources (Coastal Aquifers)

Subtheme 2: Marine Mineral Resources

Subtheme 3: Energy Resources

Theme 4: Information and Technology

To develop and maintain a national comprehensive source of multidisciplinary data and information that can be easily accessed and used by government policymakers, research scientists, and the public, and to maintain scientific instrumentation and platforms necessary to carry out research and mapping activities.

Subtheme 1: Systematic Mapping of the Coast and Seafloor

Subtheme 2: Coastal and Marine Information Bank

Subtheme 3: Assessments and Evaluation of the Information Bank

Subtheme 4: Technology and Facilities