GUEST EDITORS
Nicole A. Raineault and
Joanne Flanders
The E/V Nautilus, NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer,
and R/V Falkor 2018 Field Season
New Frontiers in
Ocean Exploration
Oceanography
Vol. 32, No. 1, Supplement, March 2019
PREFERRED CITATION
Raineault, N.A, and J. Flanders, eds. 2019. New frontiers in ocean
exploration: The E/V Nautilus, NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, and
R/V Falkor 2018 field season. Oceanography 32(1), supplement,
150 pp., https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2019.supplement.01.
The R/V Falkor team dove on “Rosebud,” a whale fall
that was placed by researchers off San Diego, California,
in La Jolla Canyon. Researchers noted changes in
composition and life forms around the location in
a beautiful, exciting dive investigating ecosystems
unique to whale falls. Image credit: SOI
FRONT COVER
A bustling community of shrimp and squat lobsters in a towering city of glass sponges
and soft corals (Pinulasma nov. sp. and Parastenella cf ramosa). This delicate deep-sea
metropolis, affectionately nicknamed “Spongetopia,” was discovered in July 2018 on
the summit of Explorer Seamount in the Northeast Pacific. Explorer is Canada’s larg-
est underwater volcano and one of 40+ seamounts located in the proposed Offshore
Pacific Marine Protected Area. Image credit: D. Fornari (WHOI-MISO Facility), Northeast
Pacific Seamount Expedition partners, and OET
Contents
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................................... 1
All Hands on Deck: The 2018 National Ocean Exploration Forum...................................................................................... 4
Expedition Support from the Inner Space Center .................................................................................................................... 6
2018 Expedition Overview Map ....................................................................................................................................................10
PART 1. OCEAN EXPLORATION TRUST – E/V NAUTILUS ...................................................................................12
Ocean Exploration Trust and E/V Nautilus: The First Ten Years (2009–2018) .................................................................14
Technology ...........................................................................................................................................................................................20
Nautilus Samples Program: Documenting the History and Diversity of Our Ocean ..................................................26
A Decade of Engaging Students, Educators, and Global Audiences in Deep-Sea Expeditions .............................30
Nautilus Field Season Overview ....................................................................................................................................................36
Contributing to Global Seabed Mapping Initiatives: Nautilus Maps Remote Pacific Areas ...........................38
Further Exploration of Methane Seeps on the Cascadia Margin .............................................................................40
Northeast Pacific Seamount Expedition: Exploring Canada’s Seamounts ...........................................................42
Deep Space Meets Deep Sea on Expedition 2018: Wiring the Abyss ....................................................................44
Mapping the Lava Deltas of the 2018 Eruption of Kīlauea Volcano .......................................................................46
SUBSEA 2018 Expedition to Lō‘ihi Seamount, Hawai‘i ................................................................................................48
Enigmatic Seamounts: Exploring the Geologic Origins and Biological Communities
in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument ......................................................................................50
Corals, Sponges, and an Octopus Garden in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary ...............................52
“Walking with the Ancients” in the Southern California Continental Borderland .............................................54
PART 2. NOAA’S OFFICE OF OCEAN EXPLORATION AND RESEARCH .......................................................56
Ten Years of Ocean Exploration with NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer: Taking the Risk to
“See Through New Technological Eyes” ............................................................................................................................58
Ocean Exploration in Support of the Blue Economy .............................................................................................................70
NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer..........................................................................................................................................................72
ASPIRE: Atlantic Seafloor Partnership for Integrated Research and Exploration Campaign 2016–2020 ...........74
2018 Expeditions with NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer ............................................................................................................76
Deep-Sea Exploration of the US Gulf of Mexico with NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer ..................................................78
Windows to the Deep 2018: Exploration of the Southeast US Continental Margin...................................................82
The Blake Ridge Wreck .....................................................................................................................................................................86
Mapping Deepwater Areas Southeast of Bermuda in Support of the Galway Statement
on Atlantic Ocean Cooperation ...........................................................................................................................................88
Océano Profundo 2018: Exploration of Deep-Sea Habitats of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands ................90
NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer 2018 Ocean Mapping Achievements ................................................................................92
Mapping and Exploration in Support of the US Extended Continental Shelf Project ...............................................96
Mapping Deepwater Areas off the Southeast US in Support of the Extended Continental Shelf Project .........98
Technology and Ocean Exploration ......................................................................................................................................... 100
Mapping Rhode Island’s Historic Submarines Using Synthetic Aperture Sonar ...................................................... 101
Gulf of Mexico Technology Demonstration ........................................................................................................................... 102
DEEP SEARCH: Deep Sea Exploration to Advance Research on Coral/Canyon/Cold Seep Habitats ................. 104
It Takes a Village! Managing Data from Okeanos Explorer ................................................................................................. 106
Engagement: Reaching Across, Beyond, and in Diverse Ways ........................................................................................ 110
Introduction and 2018 Overview ..................................................................................................................................... 110
Over a Decade of Training the Next Generation: The Explorer-in-Training Program .................................... 114
Demonstrating Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 2018 ............................................................. 115
Education Review .................................................................................................................................................................. 117
Sponsored Projects: NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research .................................................................... 118
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................. 118
Cooperative Institute for Ocean Exploration, Research, and Technology ......................................................... 119
Exploration of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Structure on Seamounts in the Western CCZ ......................... 120
Kiska: Alaska’s Underwater Battlefield ........................................................................................................................... 121
Aviators Down! The Search for Tuskegee and Free French World War II Aircraft in Lake Huron ............... 122
Peleliu’s Forgotten World War II Battlefield ................................................................................................................... 123
The American Theatre of World War II and the KS-520 Convoy Battle ................................................................ 123
Instrumentation to Assess the Untainted Microbiology of the Deep-Ocean Water Column .................... 124
Comparison of Free Vehicle and Conventional CTD ................................................................................................. 125
Midwater Acoustic Echosounding with the Wire Flyer Towed Profiling Vehicle ............................................. 126
3D “Seismic Oceanography”: The New Frontier in Ocean Water Column Exploration ................................. 127
PART 3. SCHMIDT OCEAN INSTITUTE – R/V FALKOR ........................................................................................ 128
Scaling Up Marine Science and Conservation with Artificial Intelligence and Smart Robotics in 2018 .......... 130
EPILOGUE........................................................................................................................................................................................ 138
Authors ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 140
Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................................................................... 144
References .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 147
Acronyms ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 150
Introduction
By Nicole A. Raineault, William Mowitt, and Carlie Wiener
In this ninth installment of the ocean exploration supple-
ment to Oceanography, we present highlights of the latest
field seasons of three vessels that contribute to exploring
the world ocean: the Ocean Exploration Trust’s (OET)
Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus, NOAA Ship Okeanos
Explorer, and Schmidt Ocean Institute’s (SOI) Research
Vessel (R/V) Falkor.
In 2018, the programs expanded efforts in the Pacific
Ocean. Falkor explored the southern and eastern Pacific,
Nautilus ventured further north to the Canadian seamounts
and west to Hawai‘i in the central Pacific, and Okeanos
Explorer investigated the Gulf of Mexico and US Atlantic
margin. The year 2018 also marked one decade of ocean
exploration through NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration
and Research (OER) and E/V Nautilus. Read on to learn
about this season’s new discoveries, tests of novel tech-
nologies that will improve our ability to learn about the
ocean, and the array of education and outreach activities
that reach ocean explorers globally. We also include some
retrospective pieces that provide insight on just how far
our programs have come over the last 10 years.
The Ocean Exploration Trust celebrated its tenth
E/V Nautilus field season by conducting missions that
ventured further north and west than ever before. This
supplement’s first section briefly reviews our history
(pages 14–19), sampling (pages 26–29), and education and
outreach programs (pages 30–35) that demonstrate our
commitment to innovating approaches and techniques
that improve our exploration capabilities and engagement
with students and the public. We then report on initial
results and discoveries from the 2018 Nautilus field season,
which explored the west coast of North America, from
British Columbia to Southern California (pages 36–37). We
surveyed previously unmapped seamounts and areas criti-
cal to understanding seabed mining impacts and explored
the new underwater lava flows off of Hawai‘i (pages 46–49).
We also tested technologies that would improve our ability
to sample rocks and enhance the information we collect on
mapping cruises (pages 38–39). A continued partnership
with NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries brought
us to the expanded area of the largest US marine protected
area, where we discovered several new species on remote
seamounts (pages 50–51).
The second section of this supplement focuses on the
advances and accomplishments of NOAA’s Office of Ocean
Exploration and Research and Okeanos Explorer. In 2018,
the ship returned to the Atlantic basin, reaching a decadal
milestone of exploration voyages. We review that decade
and how this US ocean exploration program, with its ded-
icated flagship, is achieving the 2000 President’s Panel for
Ocean Exploration’s vision for an innovative and bold pro-
gram that conducts voyages of discovery (pages 58–69).
We highlight the vision’s connection to the Blue Economy
(pages 70–71) and then NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer’s evo-
lution and core capabilities (pages 72–73) before turning
to OER’s renewed focus on the Atlantic Seafloor Partner-
ship for Integrated Research and Exploration (ASPIRE)
(pages 74–75). Okeanos Explorer’s passage through the
Panama Canal provided the opportunity for an expedition
in the Gulf of Mexico, which included the first exploration
of the sunken tugboat New Hope, and we describe our Gulf
work (pages 78–81) before reporting on a series of ASPIRE
Port side of what is believed to
be the tugboat New Hope, which
was sunk during Tropical Storm
Debbie in September 1965. Image
credit: NOAA OER
expeditions conducted along the Atlantic continental mar-
gin that filled in data gaps and contributed to Seabed 2030
and Galway Statement goals, which begins on page 82. We
then describe findings from deep-sea habitat exploration
around Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands (pages 90–91).
OER’s 2018 mapping achievements and advances are sum-
marized next (pages 92–95), followed by an overview of
OER contributions to the US Extended Continental Shelf
Project. This project reached a historic American milestone
in 2018, having collected all the data needed to determine
the outer limits of the US Extended Continental Shelf (ECS).
We describe Okeanos Explorer’s own 2018 ECS contribution
(pages 98–99) before turning to discussions of technology
development and a new push to provide dedicated ship
time aboard Okeanos Explorer for testing emerging tech-
nologies (pages 100–103). We next review a DEEP SEARCH
expedition (pages 104–105) and then the wealth of data
these expeditions provide, as well as how those data are
collected and managed (pages 106–109). A series of arti-
cles on OER’s engagement and outreach strategies, STEM-
driven programs, and results from OER’s first National
Education Review follow (pages 110–117). We close the
section with articles that highlight innovative work funded
through OER grants that further leverage its mission. These
projects include state-of-the art water column technology
exploration, searches of submerged World War II battle-
fields, and exploration of the biodiversity and ecology
of the vast and poorly studied Clarion-Clipperton Zone,
among other innovative projects (pages 118–127).
In the final section, Schmidt Ocean Institute highlights
some of their significant accomplishments in 2018, illumi-
nating the important outcomes of expedition-based tech-
nology trials and software development, as well as new
vent and species discoveries. From mysterious White Shark
Cafés to methane bubbles emerging from the seafloor, new
collaborations with autonomous vehicles and software
helped to provide a better understanding of our dynamic
ocean. This section charts 13 expedition outcomes that
impacted ocean sciences this year. With its philanthropic
efforts, SOI aims to demonstrate how scalable innovation
can tackle important scientific and societal challenges
(pages 128–137).
The year 2019 will bring some new partnerships that
will grow our abilities to explore. Nautilus will investigate
regions between the US west coast and Howland and
Baker Islands in the Central Pacific and begin new partner-
ships with NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
in Thunder Bay and American Samoa. Okeanos Explorer
will probe and explore the seafloor and water column in
high-priority areas of the North Atlantic and expand its
technology demonstration efforts, while continuing to
advance its high-resolution mapping capabilities. Falkor
will continue to focus on the Western Pacific, with projects
that utilize advanced and coordinated robotic systems,
artificial intelligence, and other frontier technologies
to accelerate ocean research, conservation,
and management. We invite you to fol-
low our expeditions online. We look
forward to sharing highlights of our
discoveries with you next year.
A basket star is perched on a pinna-
cle blanketed by crinoids on Pilgrim
Bank off Southern California. The
photo was taken during E/V Nautilus
cruise NA104. Image credit: OET
All Hands on Deck
The 2018 National Ocean Exploration Forum
By Katherine L.C. Bell, Adrienne Copeland, Jenni Szlosek Chow, Carlie Wiener, Alexis Hope, and David McKinnie
To fully explore and understand the ocean, we can no
longer rely solely on a handful of large, expensive research
vessels and a small, elite cohort of explorers. We truly need
All Hands on Deck to do it!
On November 8–9, 2018, over 300 people gathered for
the 2018 National Ocean Exploration Forum: All Hands on
Deck at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The purpose of bringing together leaders and change-
makers in ocean exploration, entertainment, recreation,
and art was to imagine creative new ways to enable an
open, inclusive global community of ocean explorers.
Panel discussions, demonstrations, and hands-on work-
shops focused on the forum’s themes of Play, Imagine,
Immerse, Create, Explore, and Connect, inviting participants
to consider different approaches to engage people and
build a better understanding of, and appreciation for, the
ocean. An ocean-based art exhibit was included that show-
cased the works of Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Artist-at-Sea
participants as well as the glass art of Whitney Cornforth,
photography of Keith Ellenbogen, and “Micronauts,”
an immersive installation journeying into the world
of ocean microbes.
The Play and Imagine themes focused on some of the
most fundamental passions ignited in us when we were
children playing games and listening to stories. Participants
explored how to tap into play, games, recreation, and trans-
media storytelling to spark curiosity in explorers of all ages
in order to imagine a bright, optimistic future for the ocean.
Two hands-on workshops focused on Play allowed partici-
pants to join in on the fun by designing and piloting a LEGO
remotely operated vehicle in the Charles River or designing
their own ocean exploration game. In the Imagine work-
shop, participants learned how to identify and craft an
exciting ocean story to bring others along on a journey.
The Create and Immerse themes encouraged using
modalities ranging from art and music to extended reali-
ties to create experiences that transported participants
to other worlds. The groups explored new and exciting
ways to create immersive experiences that conveyed the
mystery, wonder, and inspiration of the sea. The Create
and Immerse hands-on workshops allowed participants
Live interaction and panel discussion with
NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer and scientists
during Boston Ocean Day at the New England
Aquarium, Simons IMAX Theater. Image
credit: Sam Mitchell, University of Hawai‘i
with the private sector and academia. While the themes
of more recent forums have varied, they have been based
on recommendations from the forward-looking inaugural
Forum held in 2013: Ocean Exploration 2020. Forums have
emphasized the importance of using varied exploration
platforms, developing new technologies, creating citizen
science opportunities, increasing and fostering partner-
ships, improving low to no cost near-real-time data accessi-
bility, and enhancing and expanding ways to communicate
about ocean exploration.
The 2018 National Ocean Exploration Forum: All Hands
on Deck yielded community recommendations to be
captured in a formal report for release in 2019, revealing
how the themes of Play, Imagine, Immerse, Create, Explore,
and Connect can increase public engagement with and
excitement about ocean exploration. Archived video,
images, transcripts, and other information can be found at
https://www.allhandsondeck.community/.
to think of ocean exploration beyond the screen and the
current aquarium experience—using technology and
immersive environments, how can we create more excit-
ing, impactful experiences?
The final themes of Explore and Connect focused on
how to link a global community of ocean explorers with
the ocean and with each other. Hands-on workshops
illustrated how new tools and technologies can now allow
everyone to explore their backyard ocean and how pop-up
labs and crowd computing can entrain a new generation
of ocean explorers. Through innovative technologies,
like telepresence, anyone can join in and be a part of the
exploration journey.
All Hands on Deck included Boston Ocean Day, held
on November 10 in the Simons IMAX Theater at the New
England Aquarium. Paired with the animated series
The Deep, experts in the field of ocean exploration discussed
topics ranging from underwater volcanoes to ocean acous-
tics to the twilight zone, capturing the imagination of all
audiences. A concluding panel on ocean exploration gave
the public an opportunity to dive deep into the world of
ocean exploration with experts in the field and to ask ques-
tions live with scientists on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer as
they investigated the deep waters off Puerto Rico.
While continuing the efforts of the 2017 National Ocean
Exploration Forum to encourage a balance among partic-
ipants, across disciplines, career stage, and gender, with a
focus on an inclusive community, the 2018 Forum also took
a different approach for attendance. It invited interested
people across the globe to apply to attend and provided
need-based small travel grants to Ocean Discovery Fellows.
Of the 300 attendees, 42 Ocean Discovery Fellows came
from 11 US states and 17 countries around the world;
these Fellows were innovators with experience in science,
technology, design, recreation, entertainment, storytelling,
and community building. With participants that included
scientists, artists, songwriters, engineers, and even surfers,
attendance was the most diverse of any forum thus far.
Since 2013, the annual National Ocean Exploration
Forums have brought together leaders in ocean explora-
tion to discuss the goals of a national ocean exploration
program—a NOAA-led, multi-agency federal collaboration
Participants attending the Play LEGO underwater robot workshop
at the MIT Sailing Pavilion. Image credit: Jon Tadiello
Pau Anta and Kathleen Cantner explore ocean-inspired
hand-blown glass by Whitney Cornforth from the MIT
Glass Lab. Image credit: Jon Tadiello
Expedition Support from
the Inner Space Center
To inspire the next generation of explorers, the
Inner Space Center facilitates access to ocean explo-
ration and research by pushing the boundaries of
telepresence technology.
More than 30 years ago, Robert Ballard first proposed
using satellites and high-bandwidth network connec-
tivity to transmit data and imagery from the bottom of
the ocean to shore in real time. The central hub for this
technology, the Inner Space Center (ISC), was developed
at the University of Rhode Island (URI) Graduate School
of Oceanography (GSO) to connect ships at sea with a
growing shore-based network. Partnerships with NOAA’s
Office of Ocean Exploration and Research and the Ocean
Exploration Trust have enabled the Inner Space Center to
operate as a robust, reliable, and versatile facility that can
quickly adapt to support rapidly changing operational
requirements. Today, based on nearly 15 years of collab-
orative efforts, OER, OET, URI, and other partners are able
to apply “telepresence” technology to ocean exploration
and educational endeavors routinely and globally today.
This capability effectively erases geographic and physical
boundaries and removes limitations on expertise at sea as
well as on the available workforce.
Since 2009, the ISC has been steadily facilitating the
telepresence-based operations aboard E/V Nautilus and
NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer. Live streaming video and
audio from both of these ships are fully integrated into
their operating models and are critical to their missions.
Both programs rely on a cohort of shoreside scientists to
assist in directing shipboard operations and sampling as
well as in connecting to classrooms and other learning
institutions for outreach during the expeditions. In addition
to the two main ships, the ISC supports diverse expeditions
aboard a variety of vessels, including those in the US aca-
demic research fleet and other ships of opportunity. The
ISC’s talented staff, including scientists, engineers, video
producers, and students, collaborate closely with partners
to develop innovative approaches to content delivery that
use advances in satellite communications, networking,
video broadcast, and streaming technologies.
The ISC was live streaming video well before many of
the popular Internet technologies available today. As
smartphones, multitouch screens, advanced high-speed
publicly accessible networks, and widespread streaming
on the commodity Internet become commonplace, the ISC
works hard to innovate faster in order to keep pace in this
rapidly evolving environment.
In the early days of telepresence-enabled ocean explo-
ration, from about 2004 to 2008, the prototype ISC and
its partners developed expensive technical solutions for
video/audio/data transmissions from ships, primarily mod-
ified from the professional broadcast industry. Off-the-
shelf, or “prosumer” grade, electronics did not exist, and
high-quality video streaming on the Internet was nascent
at best. These expeditions relied on Internet2, available pri-
marily at universities and other research-based institutions,
high-end encoders/decoders, and broadcast-quality inter-
com systems to interact with ships from shore at specially
designed Exploration Command Centers.
Collaboration is Key By Colleen Peters, Dwight F. Coleman, and Catalina Martinez
URI student and ISC Intern, Benjamin Hooks, monitors
a NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer dive in Mission Control
while a live interaction takes place with a high school
in Rhode Island. Image credit: Michael Salerno/URI