From January 2-12, 2023, a team of researchers carried out a multipronged expedition to explore and develop best practices for collecting materials from submerged tar seeps and surrounding sediment.
From May 2022 through May 2024, a team of researchers will apply the emerging technology, environmental DNA or eDNA, to explore and characterize deep-sea coral communities in the remote tropical Pacific Ocean.
From April 22 to May 14, 2023, researchers searched for, investigated, and documented remains of the World War II (WWII) Battle for Saipan’s underwater battlefield, including aircraft and amphibious vehicles.
From August 11 to 13, 2023, a team of researchers visited known methane seeps off the coast of Washington to test their new approach to mapping and characterizing methane seeps over wide areas. With easily deployable and relatively inexpensive autonomous underwater vehicles equipped with imaging sonars and custom sensors, they successfully located and mapped seeps and measured associated bubbles and dissolved methane right at their source and up through the water column.
From August 15 to September 15, 2023, a team of researchers explored the nearshore area off La Push, Washington, in search of shipwrecks, and one in particular: Svyatoy Nikolai, a historically significant survey vessel for the Russian-American Company.
From October 2022 through December 2023, NOAA Ocean Exploration and partners conducted a series of five telepresence-enabled ocean exploration expeditions on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer to improve knowledge about unexplored and poorly understood deepwater areas of the U.S. West Coast from Southern California to Washington.
October 16 - November 3, 2022: EX2208: EXPRESS: West Coast Mapping 2022 / San Diego, California to Newport, Oregon
April 13 - 27, 2023: EX2301: 2023 Shakedown + EXPRESS: West Coast Exploration (ROV and Mapping) / Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington
October 21 - November 11, 2023: EX2308: 2023 EXPRESS: Exploration of Central California Coast (AUV and Mapping) / San Francisco, California to San Francisco, California
November 30 - December 8, 2023: EX2309: 2023 EXPRESS: West Coast Exploration (AUV and Mapping) / San Francisco, California to San Francisco, California
No known articles related to this expedition have been published at this time.
From January 27-February 25, 2023, a team of researchers started their search for submerged shipwrecks, aircraft, amphibious vehicles, artillery and other artifacts related to the 1944 invasion of Guam during World War II. From July 27 to August 23, 2023, returned to the field to explore targets they identified during their earlier visit.
From March 3-April 11, 2023, a team of researchers searched for new examples of serpentinization-driven hydrothermal venting on the seafloor near the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This was the first expedition on Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Research Vessel Falkor (too).
From May 24-June 10, 2023, a team of Indigenous Alaskans, local community members, and scientists explored the continental shelf west of Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska, as the second part of a multiyear project. Their goal was to locate and explore submerged caves and rock shelters that would have been accessible to early inhabitants of the region.
From August 14-18, 2023, a team of engineers and scientists tested two low-cost, open-source, underwater vehicle systems developed to help advance the protection of deep-sea coral ecosystems. They also captured images of coral to generate photometric 3D reconstructions of the seafloor and to develop automatic annotation software for the detection and classification of corals.
From May through September 2023, NOAA and partners conducted a series of telepresence-enabled ocean exploration expeditions on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer to improve knowledge about unexplored and poorly understood deepwater areas offshore Alaska, with a particular focus on the Aleutian Islands, Gulf of Alaska, and Aleutian Trench.
May 5 - 26: EX2302: Seascape Alaska 1: Aleutians Deepwater Mapping / Seattle, Washington - Dutch Harbor, Alaska
June 5 - 20: EX2303: Seascape Alaska 2: Aleutians Deepwater Mapping / Dutch Harbor, Alaska to Kodiak, Alaska
July 14 - July 25: EX2304: Seascape Alaska 3: Aleutians Remotely Operated Vehicle Exploration and Mapping / Kodiak, Alaska to Dutch Harbor, Alaska
August 1 - 17: EX2305: Seascape Alaska 4: Gulf of Alaska Deepwater Mapping / Dutch Harbor, Alaska to Kodiak, Alaska
August 23 - September 16: EX2306: Seascape Alaska 5: Gulf of Alaska Remotely Operated Vehicle Exploration and Mapping / Kodiak, Alaska to Seward, Alaska
September 23 - October 14: EX2307: Seascape Alaska 6: Gulf of Alaska Transit Mapping / Seward, Alaska to San Francisco, California
Between April and December 2023, Ocean Exploration Trust will use Exploration Vessel Nautilus to map and explore deep-sea habitats in the central and eastern Pacific and to integrate emerging exploration technologies into its operations. The 2023 Nautilus field season is sponsored primarily by NOAA Ocean Exploration through the NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute.
