Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region

Sponge reefs are constructed by hexactinellid (glass) sponges of the Order Hexactinosida. The sponges trap fine sediments, and over centuries of sponge growth and sediment trapping, form large bioherms or reef mounds. Glass sponge reefs are unique habitats found along the Pacific coast of Canada and the United States and they have significant historic, ecological, and economic value. They link benthic and pelagic environments by playing important roles in filtration and carbon and nitrogen processing, and acting as silica sinks. They also form habitat for diverse communities of invertebrates and fish, including those of economic importance. Thus, accurate and up-to-date information on the location and spatial extent of sponge reefs is important to the management and conservation of many of Canada’s Pacific marine species. We generated a map of known sponge reefs, derived from two source shape files: 1) Sponge_Reef_West_Coast, mapped by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), 2) Howesound_Nine_reef_polygons and 3) HoweSound_Five_reef_polygons, which were mapped by DFO and NRCan. The resultant polygon shapefile is published on the GIS hub as a file geodatabase feature class.

Simple

Date ( RI_367 )
2020-05-12
Date ( RI_366 )
1998-01-01
Date ( RI_368 )
2022-05-17
Date ( RI_368 )
2025-09-08
RI_414
  Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Pacific Science/Ecosystem Science Division/Marine Spatial Ecology and Analysis Section - Anya Dunham ( Research Scientist )
Pacific Biological Station 3190 Hammond Bay Road , Nanaimo , British Columbia , V9T 6N7 , Canada
Status
completed; complété RI_593
Maintenance and update frequency
asNeeded; auBesoin RI_540
Keywords ( RI_525 )
  • British Columbia
  • Howe Sound
  • Strait of Georgia
  • Hecate Strait
  • Queen Charlotte Sound
  • Georgia Basin
  • Queen Charlotte Basin
  • Holocene
  • BC
Keywords ( RI_528 )
  • Sponge reefs
  • Reefs
  • Sensitive benthic areas
  • Benthos
  • Marine geology
  • Ecologically and Biologically Significant Areas
  • EBSA
  • Aquatic wildlife
  • Biogenic habitat
  • Protected areas
  • Aphrocallistes vastus
  • Farrea occa
  • Heterochone calyx
Government of Canada Core Subject Thesaurus Thésaurus des sujets de base du gouvernement du Canada ( RI_528 )
  • Conservation
  • Aquatic wildlife
  • Aquatic ecosystems
  • Ocean floor
  • Oceans
  • Habitats
Classification
unclassified; nonClassifié RI_484
Use limitation
Open Government Licence - Canada (http://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada)
Access constraints
license; licence RI_606
Use constraints
license; licence RI_606
Spatial representation type
vector; vecteur RI_635
Metadata language
eng; CAN
Character set
utf8; utf8 RI_458
Topic category
  • Oceans
Begin date
1998-01-01
End date
2019-05-01
N
S
E
W
thumbnail


Reference system identifier
https://epsg.io / EPSG:4326 / 9.8.4
Distribution format
  • FGDB/GDB ( Unknown )

  • GEOJSON ( Unknown )

  • SHP ( Unknown )

RI_412
  Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Pacific Science/Ecosystem Science Division/Marine Spatial Ecology and Analysis Section - Kayleigh Gillespie ( Data Steward )
Pacific Biological Station 3190 Hammond Bay Road , Nanaimo , British Columbia , V9T 6N7 , Canada
OnLine resource
Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region ( ESRI REST: Map Server )

Web Service;ESRI REST;eng

OnLine resource
Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region - Geodatabase ( HTTPS )

Dataset;FGDB/GDB;eng,fra

OnLine resource
Data Dictionary ( HTTPS )

Supporting Document;HTML;eng,fra

OnLine resource
Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region - GeoJSON ( HTTPS )

Dataset;GEOJSON;eng,fra

OnLine resource
Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region - Shapefile ( HTTPS )

Dataset;SHP;eng,fra

OnLine resource
References ( HTTPS )

Supporting Document;PDF;eng,fra

OnLine resource
Data Dictionary ( HTTPS )

Supporting Document;CSV;eng,fra

OnLine resource
Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region - GIS Hub Metadata ( HTTPS )

Supporting Document;PDF;eng

OnLine resource
Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region - GIS Hub Metadata ( HTTPS )

Supporting Document;PDF;fra

OnLine resource
Sponge Reef Areas of the Pacific Region ( ESRI REST: Map Server )

Web Service;ESRI REST;fra

File identifier
8ba7bced-b63f-462a-a8a1-7c7c8a7bcfa4 XML
Metadata language
eng; CAN
Character set
utf8; utf8 RI_458
Hierarchy level
dataset; jeuDonnées RI_622
Date stamp
2025-09-09T17:36:16.63Z
Metadata standard name
North American Profile of ISO 19115:2003 - Geographic information - Metadata
Metadata standard version
CAN/CGSB-171.100-2009
RI_414
  Government of Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Pacific Science/Ecosystem Science Division/Marine Spatial Ecology and Analysis Section - Marine Spatial Ecology and Analysis Section - Data Stewardship Unit ( )
Institute of Ocean Sciences 9860 West Saanich Road P.O. Box 6000 , Sidney , British Columbia , V8L 4B2 , Canada
 
 

Overviews

overview
Sponge Reef Areas

Spatial extent

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Keywords


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Associated resources

Not available