The geographic diversity of ONC observatories represents the widest range of environments of any ocean observing infrastructure on Earth. Thousands of seafloor instruments enable multi-disciplinary research within biological, chemical, geological and physical oceanography disciplines, extending to high energy particle physics, forensics, material sciences, climate change impacts, climate change solutions, and seismic resilience. Researchers and other users can access instruments and data archives remotely, from anywhere on the globe, in real time. We have developed analytics tools that address big data challenges such as analyzing underwater imagery and acoustic data.

Our partnerships with Indigenous communities, coastal communities, citizen scientists and non-governmental organizations have extended our ocean observing networks into the coastal waters of the Atlantic provinces, the Arctic, and British Columbia, providing new data for scientific research. These partnerships have also expanded the spatial and temporal reach of accessible ocean data. These data support the development and implementation of localized ocean protection measures and climate actions.