Monitor National Marine Sanctuary is the site of the wreck of the USS Monitor, one of the most famous shipwrecks in U.S. history. It was designated as the country's first national marine sanctuary on January 30, 1975, and is the only one of the thirteen national marine sanctuaries created to protect a cultural resource rather than a natural resource. The sanctuary comprises a column of water 1 nautical mile (1.9 km) in diameter extending from the ocean’s surface to the seabed around the wreck of the Civil War ironclad, which lies 16 nautical miles (30 km) south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Average water depth in the sanctuary is 230 feet (70 m). Since its sinking in 1862, the Monitor has become an artificial reef attracting numerous fish species, including amberjack, black seabass, oyster toadfish and great barracuda.
Read more about Monitor National Marine Sanctuary: USS Monitor, Rediscovery, Preservation
Famous quotes containing the words monitor, national, marine and/or sanctuary:
“It is indeed typical that you Earth people refuse to believe in the superiority of any world but your own. Children looking into a magnifying glass, imagining the image you see is the image of your true size.”
—Franklin Coen. Joseph Newman. The Monitor (Douglas Spencer)
“Ignorance, forgetfulness, or contempt of the rights of man are the only causes of public misfortunes and of the corruption of governments.”
—French National Assembly. Declaration of the Rights of Man (drafted and discussed Aug. 1789, published Sept. 1791)
“God has a hard-on for a Marine because we kill everything we see. He plays His game, we play ours.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)
“He took the props down used for propping open,
And set them up again for propping shut,
The widespread double doors two stories high.
The advantage-disadvantage of these doors
Was that tramp taking sanctuary there
Must leave them unlocked to betray his presence.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)