P.KARTHICK , R. MOHANRAJ U , KADA NARAYANA MURTHY , CH. RAM ESH ANDSUMANTHANARAYANA D e partment of Oc e an Studi e s a nd Marine Bi o l o g y, Pondicher r y Universit y Br oo kshabad C ampus , Port Blair - 7 44 112 , Andaman A sur v e y wa s c onducted in Little And a ma n during Jul y and Augu s t 2012 . Altog e th er 5 2 s pecies belonging to 28 gener a of seaweeds were recorded at five stations . Amon g th ese , 32 s pecies comprising Gra c i/aria . G e lidie/la . C aulerpa . Sargassum . Turbinaria . Ac anth o p h o ra . V iva . Hal y menia and Laur e n c ia are commercially important . The s e alga e we r e fo und growing in appreciable quantitie s o n the r o cks in the intertidal region . T h e oc c urr ence of C aulerpa l e nt i // if era is a n e w re c ord in Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Thi s s tud y s h o we d rich macro algal diversity and they could be used for the industrial application s . Seaweeds are photosynthetic marine macro algae which are classified into green, brow n , red and blue-green algae . They are the o n ly source for the production of phycocolloids like alginate , carrageenan and aga r . Some green and red seaweeds are consumed as vegetables in many centuries especially by people of Southeast Asia and s ome are used for agricultural and other i ndustrial purposes in confectionary , textile , pharmaceutical , dairy, paper industries etc . Economically important seaweeds are found g rowing luxuriantly along Indian coast including Andaman and Nicobar Islands Chennubhotla et al . (1987). Kaliaperuma l ( 2005) suggested that the bays and creeks in the east and west coast, Andaman-Nicobar islands and atolls of Lakshadweep are suitable places for the cultivation of seaweeds, which will provide employment opportunitie s for coastal population . Seaweed distribution i n Andaman and Nicobar Islands were publish e d by Krishnamurthy and Joshi ( 1970 ), Jagtap (1992), Silva e t al . (1996) , Umam a heswara R ao (2000) and Mohanraju and Tanusree ( 2 01 2) . Palanisamy (2012) reported that harvestabl e quantities of brown seaweed s are availabl e i n South Andaman . Seaweed biomass study in Andaman and Nicobar Islands and South Andaman was made by Gopinathan and Panigrahy (1983) and Muthuvelan e t a l . (2001) . Vinoth et al. (2011) documented rich seaweed diversity and biomas s in Gr e a t Nicobar Island. For Andaman and Nic o b ar Islands , considerable amount o f data with respect to seaweed distribution are av a ilabl e but information on biomass and availabilit y of commercial seaweeds are scanty . Th e present study was made with a view to estimate the potentially important seaweed s peci e s of