COVER
VOL. 29, NO. 1, SUPPLEMENT | MARCH 2016
GUEST EDITORS | KATHERINE L.C. BELL,
MICHAEL L. BRENNAN, JOANNE FLANDERS,
NICOLE A. RAINEAULT, AND KATIE WAGNER
Oceanography
The E/V Nautilus and NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer
2015 Field Season
Frontiers in
Ocean Exploration
New
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................1
JOINT PROGRAM OVERVIEW MAP .............................................................................................................................................................................4
THE E/V NAUTILUS 2015 FIELD SEASON .................................................................................................................................................................6
Technology ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................8
Nautilus Samples Program .......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14
A Community Approach to STEM Education ....................................................................................................................................................................... 18
E/V Nautilus Field Season Overview ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 24
Fate and Transport of Gas Bubbles from Sleeping Dragon Seep in the Northern Gulf of Mexico .................................................................... 26
ECOGIG: Oil Spill Effects on Deep-Sea Corals Through the Lenses of Natural Hydrocarbon Seeps and Long Time Series ..................... 28
ROV Hercules Investigates Brine Lakes on the Bottom of the Ocean ........................................................................................................................... 30
Exploring the Undersea World of the Galápagos Islands ................................................................................................................................................ 32
Exploration of Hydrothermal Vents Along the Galápagos Spreading Center .......................................................................................................... 35
Mapping the Eastern Pacific Ocean: Nautilus Mapping 2015......................................................................................................................................... 38
Exploration and Discovery of Methane Seeps and Associated Communities in the California Borderland ................................................. 40
High-Resolution Imaging and Characterization of the USS Macon Airship Wreck Site ........................................................................................ 44
Ocean Networks Canada: Maintaining One of the World’s Most Advanced Ocean Observing Systems ....................................................... 46
THE NOAA SHIP OKEANOS EXPLORER 2015 FIELD SEASON................................................................................................................ 48
Telepresence-Enabled Exploration with NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer ...................................................................................................................... 50
Advancing Undersea Technology ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 52
Applied Excellence In Data Management ............................................................................................................................................................................. 56
Okeanos Explorer 2015 Field Season Overview .................................................................................................................................................................... 58
2015 Strategic Mapping Exploration in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean ....................................................................................................... 62
Océano Profundo 2015: Exploring Puerto Rico’s Seamounts, Trenches, and Troughs .......................................................................................... 64
CAPSTONE’s First Year —2015 Hohonu Moana: Exploring Deep Waters off Hawai’i ............................................................................................. 68
Okeanos Explorer Engages Far and Wide in 2015 ................................................................................................................................................................ 74
EPILOGUE ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 76
AUTHORS...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 78
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 80
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 83
IMAGE CREDITS
All images copyright Ocean Exploration
Trust unless otherwise noted.
PREFERRED CITATION
Bell, K.L.C., M.L. Brennan, J. Flanders, N.A. Raineault, and K. Wagner, eds.
2016. New frontiers in ocean exploration: The E/V Nautilus and NOAA Ship
Okeanos Explorer 2015 field season. Oceanography 29(1), supplement, 84 pp.,
http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2016.supplement.01.
Cover photo credit: D. Fornari (Woods Hole Oceano-
graphic Institution) and the Ocean Exploration Trust.
Special thanks to C. Smart (University of Rhode Island)
Introduction
Fifteen years ago, the national ocean exploration program began
with establishment of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) Office of Ocean Exploration and Research
(OER), based on recommendations from President Clinton’s Panel
on Ocean Exploration (2000). Since that time, two vessels have been
dedicated to ocean exploration, NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer,
operated by OER, and Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus, owned
and operated by the Ocean Exploration Trust (OET).
These two vessels have spent time exploring in the Pacific and
Atlantic Oceans, the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, and the
Mediterranean and Black Seas, making discoveries in archaeology,
biology, geology, chemistry, and physical oceanography. Dozens of
shipwrecks have been discovered dating from ancient times to the
modern, acoustic mapping and remotely operated vehicle (ROV)
dives have shed light on the flux of hydrocarbons from beneath
the seafloor into the ocean, and innumerable records have been
set regarding observations of organisms in new locations and new
species unknown to science. And great quantities of data are now
in archives awaiting scientists and students to ask new questions
and make additional discoveries.
In this sixth ocean exploration supplement to Oceanography
magazine, we present the initial results of the Nautilus and
Okeanos Explorer 2015 field seasons in the Gulf of Mexico, the
Caribbean Sea, and the Pacific Ocean. We include summa-
ries of exploration and discoveries and describe new devel-
opments in technology and engineering as well as innovative
outreach to stakeholders.
The results of the Nautilus Exploration Program are contained
in the first section, beginning with a description of the technologies
used on board Nautilus for telepresence-enabled deep submer-
gence exploration and educational programming (pages 8–13).
In 2015, the major addition to our technological suite was a new
VSAT system graciously donated to OET by SeaTel Cobham. We
also upgraded our suction sampling system, greatly increasing
our capacity to collect soft, small, and fragile samples. Last year,
we began including updates on sample analysis from previous
cruises, and we do so again in this edition, highlighting analyses of
biological and geological samples collected during the Galápagos
and southern California cruise legs (pages 14–17). We next focus
on our education and outreach programs (pages 18–23), which
By Katherine L.C. Bell and John McDonough
Background
photo credit:
NOAA OER
Background
photo credit:
NOAA OER
continue to reach unprecedented numbers of people, up to an esti-
mated 80 million over the course of the 2015 field season. Not only
are we engaging larger numbers of people worldwide, we are also
emphasizing a community approach to our education programs,
focusing our science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
(STEM) efforts on a limited number of locations around the coun-
try to expose students to a deeper understanding of STEM careers
and opportunities. The end of the first section focuses on the 2015
Nautilus expedition, which began in the Gulf of Mexico in April,
transited through the Panama Canal in May, and explored from
the Galápagos Islands to Canada from June through September
(pages 26–47), focusing primarily on the geological and biological
exploration of these poorly understood regions of the ocean.
The 2015 advancements and missions of NOAA Ship
Okeanos Explorer are described in the second section. Most notably,
we launched a multiyear Campaign to Address Pacific monument
Science, Technology, and Ocean NEeds (CAPSTONE) designed to
explore and characterize deepwater regions of the newly expanded
system of Marine National Monuments in the central and western
Pacific (pages 68–73). The objective is to provide authoritative,
science-based information to support decision making with
respect to these little-known ocean areas. On our way to the Pacific,
we mapped and explored deepwater areas around Puerto Rico
and the US Virgin Islands, work that included the first dive of our
dual-body ROV Deep Discoverer and companion vehicle Seirios
to 6,000 m in the Puerto Rico Trench (pages 62–67). The 2015
field season also included some significant advancements in our
ability to collect and disseminate more and higher resolution data
and information from the regions being explored (pages 56–57).
We added a Kraft Predator II manipulator and sample storage
box to Deep Discoverer, allowing for collection of biological and
geological samples that are critical for understanding more about
the Marine National Monuments (pages 52–55). We also contin-
ued our efforts to reach out to the scientific community, decision
makers, and the public at large, including establishment of two
new state-of-the-art Exploration Command Centers at the NOAA
Inouye Regional Center in Honolulu and the University of Hawaii
at Manoa (pages 74–75).
The new command centers join a growing list of shore-based
Internet2-enabled facilities around the world that can access live
video feeds and other data sets in real time from NOAA Ship
Okeanos Explorer, E/V Nautilus, or any other telepresence- enabled
oceanographic vessel. The ability to engage teams of scientists,
educators, students, and others at Exploration Command Centers,
as well as the progress being made on Internet1 and mobile
access, continues to enhance the way in which we are exploring
the global ocean. Using these new technologies, we can exponen-
tially increase the number of participants contributing to the first
observations of previously unknown areas, and we enable them to
work with the information long after the missions are over so they
can make additional discoveries.
We are excited to share the results of our 2015 discoveries with
you, and we look forward to your participation in the national
ocean exploration program.
Photo credit: NOAA OER
Joint Program Overview Map
Page 68 |
CAPSTONE:
Exploring
Deep
Waters off
Hawai’i
Page 62 |
Mapping the
Caribbean
and Pacific
Page 46 |
Ocean
Networks
Canada
Page 40 |
Methane
Seeps in the
California
Borderland
Page 44 |
USS Macon
Airship
Wreck Site
Page 38 |
Mapping
the Eastern
Pacific
2015 E/V Nautilus
Expeditions
2015 NOAA Ship
Okeanos Explorer
Expeditions
Page 62 |
Mapping the
Caribbean
and Pacific
Page 32 |
The Undersea
World of the
Galápagos
Islands
Page 35 |
Galápagos
Spreading
Center
Hydrothermal
Vents
Page 64 |
Puerto Rico’s
Seamounts,
Trenches, and
Troughs
Page 28 |
ECOGIG:
Oil Spill
Effects on
Deep-Sea
Corals
Page 30 |
Brine Lakes
on the
Bottom of
the Ocean
Page 26 |
Gas Bubbles
from Sleeping
Dragon Seep
THE E/V NAUTILUS
2015 FIELD SEASON
GENERAL
BUILT | 1967, Rostock, Germany
LENGTH | 64.23 meters (211 feet)
BEAM | 10.5 meters (34.5 feet)
DRAFT | 4.9 meters (14.75 feet)
TONNAGE | 1,249 gross, 374 net
RANGE | 24,000 kilometers (13,000 nautical miles)
ENDURANCE | 40 days at sea
SPEED | 10 knots service, 12 knots maximum
FUEL CAPACITY | 330 cubic meters
PROPULSION | Single 1,286 kilowatt (1,700 hp) controllable
pitch main thruster; 250 kW bow
thruster; 350 kW jet pump stern thruster
SHIP SERVICE GENERATORS | Two 500 kVa generators, one
350 kVa generator, and one 450 kVa shaft generator
PORTABLE VAN SPACE | One 20-foot van
COMPLEMENT | 17 crew; 31 science and operations
FLAG | St. Vincent and the Grenadines
HEAVY EQUIPMENT |
• Dynacon 421 ROV winch with 4,500 meter (14,764 feet)
Rochester A302351 1.73 centimeter (0.68 inch)
diameter cable
• DT Marine 210 winch with 1,200 m Rochester
A320327 0.82 centimeter (0.322 inch) diameter wire
• Bonfiglioli knuckle-boom crane, 4.2 ton capacity,
two extensions
• A-frame, 6 ton capacity
DATA PROCESSING & VISUALIZATION LAB
AREA | 44.5 square meters (480 square feet)
WORKSTATIONS | Seven workstations for data manager,
data loggers, navigators, educators, data engineers,
satellite engineer, video engineer; high-resolution map,
multi beam, and side-scan sonar processing;
flexible bench space
TELEPRESENCE TECHNOLOGY
VSAT | 2.4 meter axis stabilized Sea Tel 9711 uplink antenna
capable of C and Ku band operation of up to 20 Mbps
(C-band circular or linear)
REAL-TIME VIDEO STREAMING |
• Four Tandberg standard definition encoders with
multiplex for encapsulating real-time video
• Harmonic Electra 7000 high definition encoder
CAMERAS | Two Sony BZR-H700 high definition pan/
tilt/zoom cameras mounted to view the aft deck and
port rail; one BZR-H700 in the control vans; Marshall
VS-570 PTZ cameras in the wet lab (with microphone
for communicate with scientists ashore) and in the ROV
hanger with shore, mounted in Wet Lab and ROV hangar
COMMUNICATIONS |
• Ship-wide RTS Telex intercom system for real-time
communications between ship and shore
• Handheld UHF radios are interfaced with the RTS
intercom system for deck, bridge, and Control Room
communications
CONTROL & IMAGING VANS
AREA | 28 square meters (301.4 square feet)
WORKSTATIONS | Nine; typical configuration for ROV
operations: two to three scientists, data logger, Hercules
pilot, Argus pilot, navigator, video engineer, educator
Technology
E/V Nautilus