The sea is all around you, even if you live inland, far from the coast. It's in places you least expect: Yankee Stadium, the gas in your car, the land you walk, even the air you breathe. It's in the marble of sculptors, the foundation of sky scrapers, and in each and every cell of your body. The Sea Around You begins to show you where, and how. Dive in. Join us. Use this interactive map to find our sites, and then add your own!

Main Map

Sea turtles mark places where you can find signs of the sea around you. We've chosen sea turtles to mark the sites because, like sea turtles, we too need both the land and sea to live, although the ways may not be as obvious. Click on a sea turtle to see each site. You can then comment on the site, or add to the map by submitting your own signs of the sea from places you know. This first map is of North America, but you can submit signs of the sea from anywhere in the world.

Recent Sites

Marine Fossils in “Fossil” Fuel

Sea Around You

Do you own a car? The gas that powers your car or truck is “fossil fuel,” made from marine fossils. Where do they come from and how do they make oil and gas?

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What’s under Detroit? Sea Salt

Sea Around You

Every time you pick up that salt shaker or grab a handful of salt to put on an icy road, you’re holding a part of the sea.

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Play Ball! Old Seafloor and a New Stadium

Sea Around You

Yankee fans entering the new stadium to catch a game pass through gates built on a base of granite –granite quarried by Red Sox fans. The granite itself, though, was made by colliding continents and an ocean basin that disappeared long before there was baseball.

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New York Skyscrapers in an Ancient Sea

Sea Around You

Ever wonder why New York City’s tall skyscrapers don’t sink into the ground? Or why Greenwich Village isn’t as tall as downtown Manhattan? Thank the sea.

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Ghost Sharks in Kansas

Sea Around You

High tech x-ray imaging of a walnut-sized fossil collected over 70 years ago in Kansas unexpectedly revealed its long hidden secret: an intact, and extremely rare, 300-million-year-old brain, the oldest fossil brain found. And it came from a fish.

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Beached Sea Garden in Greenfield, NY

Sea Around You

Half the oxygen we breathe is made in the ocean. Along a wooded roadside in rural Greenfield, New York, outside Saratoga Springs, sits part of an ancient reef whose dwellers made oxygen for earth’s early large animals.

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Giant Marine Fossil in Downtown Fayetteville, AR

Sea Around You

Three college students digging in a drainage ditch on a busy road found an eight-foot-long fossil of an animal that lived in the sea 325 million years ago. What was it doing there, and why is it so large?

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