The Ocean Exploration Trust (OET) Workshop on
Telepresence-Enabled Exploration of the Caribbean Region
was convened in November 2012 to plan for the 2013 field sea-
son with the idea that Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus and
its Corps of Exploration would spend only one year working
in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. However, the
strong showing of interest in the area from the international
group of marine scientists who submitted white papers to and
participated in that workshop was so impressive the Trust
and its Nautilus Advisory Board decided to schedule a second
year in this area of the world before moving on to the Pacific
Ocean, as originally planned.
This fifth Oceanography supplement chronicles the 2014
field season: four months of exploration in the Gulf of Mexico
and the Caribbean Sea, as well as rapid growth in our science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education
and outreach programs and continued research on best prac-
tices of telepresence and archaeological oceanography.
The first section of this supplement (pages 4–15) describes
the technology used on board Nautilus to explore the deep
sea and to make our expeditions accessible globally to the
public, students, and scientists alike. The biggest technology
strides during 2014 were made in data management and
accessibility. On board Nautilus, we completely renovated the
Data Processing & Visualization Laboratory in advance of the
2014 field season, creating a space for scientists, students, and
engineers to process and analyze data during expeditions and
share them with scientists on shore. Our Data Team was hard
at work creating online collaboration tools that now make
it significantly easier to access Nautilus data in real time or
near-real time on board the ship, on shore at the Inner Space
Center, and in scientists’ homes and laboratories. Continued
emphasis on data management in the coming years will result
in easier collaboration among scientists at sea and ashore, and
will accelerate the pace of discovery and research.
The area of largest growth for the Nautilus Exploration
Program in 2014 was in education and outreach (pages 16–23).
In June, we launched our first Community STEM Program
(CSP) in South Florida, sponsored by the Florida Panthers
Foundation. This new initiative focuses our STEM education
efforts in select geographical regions, allowing single com-
munities to engage their members in all of the educational
programs OET offers, thereby increasing the impact these
programs can have in any individual location. By working at
the intersection of education and ocean exploration, our goal
is to promote STEM fields using the excitement of exploration
and technological innovation. Our programs range from the
public website Nautilus Live (http://www.nautiluslive.org), to
live interactions with museums, aquariums, and science cen-
ters, to K12 Learning modules for schools and out-of-school
programs, to seagoing opportunities for high school, college,
and graduate students. By the beginning of the 2015 field
season, CSP will have grown to more than 10 communities,
and we expect further expansion to 15–20 communities by
the 2017 field season.
The first exploratory program of 2014 was carried out at
Great Bahama Bank and in the Straits of Florida, two High
Priority Target Areas identified during the 2012 Caribbean
Workshop because of their potential geohazards and sink-
holes (pages 26–27). This cruise was followed by a series
of exploratory transits in and around the Dry Tortugas,
By Robert D. Ballard and Katherine L.C. Bell
INTRODUCTION