explorers, scientists, and engineers through public engage-
ment and education activities (pages 68–71). Then we take a
deeper dive into Okeanos Explorer expeditions. Expeditions
to several areas across the central Pacific included high seas
surveys and exploration of the Musicians Seamounts and
remote protected areas. We also report on how we manage
our underwater biological and geological samples and lever-
age the intellectual capital of shoreside scientists by opening
up sample collections for community input (pages 72–85),
and we discuss the importance of international partnerships
(pages 86–87) and their emergence during CAPSTONE.
OER’s sponsored projects include work with the Cooperative
Institute for Ocean Exploration, Research, and Technology
(CIOERT), and we present highlights of maritime archaeol-
ogy and methane cold seeps exploration as well as showcase
some new technology developments (pages 88–96). Finally,
we discuss the power of partnerships to increase the potential
for ocean exploration and highlight ones focused on deep-sea
ecosystems in the Atlantic, including coral, and look at part-
nerships taking shape to enable the goals of the new Atlantic
campaign to be met (pages 97–101).
The final part of this supplement highlights some signif-
icant accomplishments of R/V Falkor’s 2017 field season.
Celebrating the ship’s five years of research, Schmidt Ocean
Institute (SOI) supported technology development as well as
research that examined scalable approaches to the character-
ization of phytoplankton community dynamics, rates of past
sea level change as recorded in the structure of ancient corals,
diversity of geological processes surrounding some of the
world’s most active submarine volcanic provinces, and unique
and novel biological ecosystems discovered within large and
remote protected areas. Through its philanthropic efforts,
SOI aims to demonstrate how scalable innovation can tackle
important scientific and societal challenges (pages 102–109).
In 2018, cruise plans call for the three vessels to work in
geographically distant parts of the globe. Nautilus will com-
plete its first West Coast to Hawai‘i circle, returning at the
end of the season to San Pedro, California, and Falkor will
continue to focus on the greater Pacific Ocean. Okeanos
Explorer will venture into the Atlantic Ocean (including
performing additional work in the Gulf of Mexico), initiating
the Atlantic Seafloor Partnership for Integrated Research and
Exploration (ASPIRE). This is a large cross-Atlantic basin
effort in support of the Galway Statement on Atlantic Ocean
Cooperation, an initiative between the United States, Canada,
and the European Union to advance knowledge of the
Atlantic Ocean to improve stewardship and understanding.
We invite you to follow along with our explorations online,
and we look forward to sharing highlights of new discoveries
with you next year.
ROV Deep Discoverer documents the benthic
communities at Paganini Seamount, captur-
ing high-resolution imagery that can be used
by scientists to identify organisms and build a
baseline characterization of what these habi-
tats look like. Image credit: NOAA OER