The ship Albatross IV is a research vessel owned and operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States Department of Commerce.

Built in 1962, by the Southern Shipbuilding Corporation of Slidell, Louisiana, the Albatross IV was designed to meet the operational requirements developed by the staff at the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (now National Marine Fisheries Service) biological lab at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1960. Its mission then, as it remains today, is to conduct fisheries and oceanographic research in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. She is especially equipped to collect information on the distribution and abundance of groundfish and sea scallops as well as on environmental factors which affect seasonal and long-term changes in fish stocks. In addition, the Albatross IV is equipped to study organisms which form the food supply of groundfish, and to investigate plankton populations and oceanographic conditions.

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Other ships of the NOAA Fleet