including documentation of a German U-boat supporting
a dense concentration of invasive lion fish that is threaten-
ing the shallow- and deepwater communities in the Gulf of
Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.
Approximately one month was devoted to conducting four
missions in the Gulf of Mexico. Two of these projects were
continuing efforts to (1) document how natural and acci-
dental oil and gas inputs affect deep-sea coral communities,
working with the Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Inputs to
the Gulf (ECOGIG) Consortium (pages 28–29), and (2) study
the fate and transport of gas bubbles from natural seeps, in
conjunction with the Gulf Integrated Spill Response (GISR)
Consortium (pages 32–33).
The other two projects were concerned with investigat-
ing a series of shipwrecks that were involved in “Operation
Drumbeat,” when, in 1941, Adolph Hitler sent a wolfpack
of U-boats to the East Coast and into the Gulf of Mexico
to disrupt US shipping routes and transport of oil and
other commodities of critical importance to the war effort
(pages 30–31). These two expeditions resulted in a NOVA/
National Geographic program aired on Public Television in
May 2015 as well as a second show aired on CBS’s 60 Minutes
that highlighted not only the human history preserved in the
depths of the Gulf of Mexico, but also the natural resources
contained within the US Exclusive Economic Zone.
Following our efforts in the Gulf of Mexico, Nautilus
continued to explore the Caribbean Sea, further responding
to the recommendations of the 2012 Caribbean Workshop.
Targets of exploration in 2014 included the deep waters of the
Mesoamerican Reef off the coast of Belize, the second larg-
est barrier reef system in the world (pages 34–35), and the
Windward Passage between Jamaica and Haiti (pages 36–37).
The geological and biological aspects of both locations were
investigated using the Nautilus EM302 multibeam sonar
system to create maps of the seafloor before diving on
selected targets with the remotely operated vehicles (ROVs)
Hercules and Argus.
The expedition then continued on to the Anegada Passage
in the eastern Caribbean to follow up on successful explora-
tion there during the 2013 field season. The 2014 cruise, which
included collection of new rock and core samples, was again
led by US Geological Survey scientist Amanda Demopoulos
and funded by a Targeted Research RFP solicited by the US
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)