By Fran Lightsom, USGS.

U.S. and Canadian partners have developed a new online mapping service that brings together U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data and data sets from other government agencies and research institutions that are active in the Gulf of Maine. The final project meeting of "Building a Spatial Data Framework in the Gulf of Maine to Support Benthic Mapping for Resource Management" was held August 9 in the conference center of the New England Aquarium. The meeting featured a presentation of the Gulf of Maine Mapping Portal (GoMMaP), which allows online users to create their own maps by selecting regions, base maps, and data. The portal is also a Web service that allows other organizations to present customized Internet mapping services as part of their Web sites. USGS data, including freshwater features and seabed sediment type, are among the basic maps offered by GoMMaP. USGS interpretations of coastal geomorphology and coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise are also available. After GoMMaP is released publicly at the Gulf of Maine Summit, to be held October 26-29 in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada, the portal will go online. This project was jointly sponsored by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) and the Canadian agency GeoConnections. USGS contributions were arranged by Brad Butman and Valerie Paskevich (both at USGS Woods Hole Coastal and Marine Science Center).