Introduction
By Nicole A. Raineault, Frank Cantelas, and Carlie Wiener
This is the tenth installment of the ocean exploration
supplement to Oceanography, the official magazine of The
Oceanography Society, with annual highlights of accom-
plishments aboard three vessels that explore the world
ocean: the Ocean Exploration Trust’s (OET’s) E/V Nautilus,
NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, and Schmidt Ocean Institute’s
(SOI’s) R/V Falkor.
In 2019, the programs expanded efforts in the Pacific
Ocean with Falkor working in the southern and eastern
Pacific, Nautilus in the central and western Pacific, and
Okeanos Explorer in the Gulf of Mexico and along the
Atlantic continental margin into the western North Atlantic.
The pages that follow contain expedition summaries,
including early discoveries, emerging technologies, new
information on education and outreach programs, and
exciting announcements about future endeavors.
The first section highlights OET and E/V Nautilus endeav-
ors. The operations expanded beyond Nautilus with a
mapping mission in Lake Huron that marked OET’s first
mobile system expedition, in partnership with Thunder
Bay National Marine Sanctuary and the University of
New Hampshire’s Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping
(page 32). Nautilus ventured to Samoa and explored the
vast central Pacific, including the Pacific Remote Islands
Marine National Monument (pages 38–39, 42–43, 46–47).
A summary of our technologies (pages 10–17), newly rede-
signed wet lab and specimen highlights (pages 18–21),
and education and outreach programs (pages 22–27)
showcases the ways in which OET continues to innovate.
We mapped more than previous seasons, contributing
important data to the Seabed 2030 initiative (pages 30–31).
A continued partnership with the NOAA Office of National
Marine Sanctuaries brought us to the American Samoa
sanctuary along with a return to several other sanctuaries
along the west coast of the United States (pages 48–49,
50–51). Finally, we are excited to be part of the newly
awarded NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute in
partnership with four oceanographic academic institutions
(pages 52–53).
The second section focuses on the NOAA Office of Ocean
Exploration and Research (OER). It begins with an overview
of Okeanos Explorer expeditions (pages 56–58) and the
ship’s unique mission (page 59) and is followed by OER’s
review of the deep-sea science and management commu-
nities’ data requirements (pages 60–61). We highlight OER’s
exploratory midwater work (pages 62–63) as well as the
Atlantic Seafloor Partnership for Integrated Research and
Exploration (page 64) that formed the framework for 2019
exploration. The ship’s shakedown cruise is described next
(page 65) and then a mission that examined newly found
deep-ocean seeps (pages 66–67). Technology demonstra-
tions carried out utilizing Okeanos Explorer are showcased
(pages 68–69), followed by collaborative work to enhance
underwater video capture and annotation tools (page 70).
We describe exploration of the US and Canadian Atlantic
continental margin with Canadian and European partners
in support of Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance and Seabed
2030 goals (pages 71–73) and then discuss open data shar-
ing practices and a “data lake” concept that could store data