Rota, 117 km southwest of Saipan and 76 km north of Guam, is the southernmost island in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
It has a land area of 85.5 square km and is approximately 17 km long and 5 km wide. The principal communities are Sinapalo and SongSong. As Rota was neither developed
extensively by the Japanese nor invaded during World War II (WWII), it still has much of its native vegetation. However, the island is becoming more of a tourist
destination and development is increasing, which may impact the existing fringing reefs. Fringing reef surrounds the island and modern reef development is most
significant on the northwest coast, west of Teteto Beach, and in the Sasanhaya Bay on the southwest coast. Continuous reef is found inside Sasanhaya Bay and an
area along the western shore. Erosion along the Talakaya cliff line on the southern coast is causing sedimentation problems on adjacent reefs.
This map includes classified video data from TOAD camera sled tows conducted at Rota during 2003 (cruise OES0307), and classified photographs from selected AUV dives
conducted at Rota in 2010 (cruise SE1002). During cruise SE1002, 3 AUV dives were conducted at Rota, however, as the AUV was still undergoing testing and trials, two
of these dives repeated the same route. Therefore, only photos from 2 dives have been classified for this map. These were selected due to covering distinct routes, and were
conducted during the day/night.
More details can be found in the relevant cruise metadata:
Cruises CoRIS Metadata Record Names
OES0307 cred_toad_rota_oes0307_2003.txt
SE1002 cred_auv_se1002_2010.txt
Resource Description: Digital video images and still photographs that are geo-referenced to navigation files.