Throughout the course of the second leg of the Okeanos Explorer Northeast U.S. Canyons 2013 Expedition, scientists on the ship and on shore, along with the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) team and ship's crew, were joined by thousands of online viewers as we all explored canyons and intercanyons and Mytilus Seamount along the northeastern coast of the United States. This video captures highlights from the 15 dives that were conducted during Leg 2 of the expedition from the ROV Deep Discoverer...

Listen to a NOAA video podcast about the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer's Continuous Plankton Tow from Guam to California and sampling work conducted through the 'Pacific Garbage Patch'. Learn why systematic exploration aboard the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer is an evolving operational model referred to as a 'sticks and boxes' approach. The variety of data being collected onboard the Okeanos during this cruise from Hawaii to California represents a step forward in the exploration that can be...

In summer 2010, the United States and the Republic of Indonesia explored deep-sea Indonesian waters that had never been seen before. Together they discovered fascinating areas of the Coral Triangle, where the Indian and Pacific Oceans meet. In Secrets of the Deep Ocean you'll learn about how we explore the ocean, and see a massive undersea volcano and exciting, unusual and often weird-looking creatures that share our planet. Video courtesy of R. Rivera, NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program,...

Nine ROV dives into the Galapágos Rift 2011 Expedition, the science team finally discovered the type of hydrothermal vent community they had been searching for. Clusters of tube worms, limpets, mussels, and anemones were seen to inhabit cracks in the lava bed where mineral-rich, geothermally-heated water 'vents' out. Two species of tube worms were found in abundance: the giant Riftia pachyptila and also the much smaller, never before observed in the Galápagos, Tevnia jerichonana. Brachyuran...

Watch a NOAA video podcast about the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer's Continuous Plankton Tow from Guam to California and sampling work conducted through the 'Pacific Garbage Patch'. Learn why systematic exploration aboard the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer is an evolving operational model referred to as a 'sticks and boxes' approach. The variety of data being collected onboard the Okeanos during this cruise from Hawaii to California represents a step forward in the exploration that can be conducted...

Mendocino Ridge 4,600ft gas plume discovery off the California coast. Okeanos Explorer, "America's Ship for Ocean Exploration", is equipped with the latest in technology systems, including multibeam sonar. This technology involves sending beams of sonar to the ocean floor and measuring the amount of time it takes for those beams to bounce back to the ship. In doing so, the sonar creates a 3-D "sound picture", or map, of the seafloor. While the ship was testing its sonar off the coast of...

A compilation of video clips collected in deepwater by the Little Hercules Remotely Operated Vehicle and camera platform during an ROV shakedown cruise aboard NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer offshore Kona, Hawaii (March 2010). The video footage shows a pelagic sea cucumber (apodid holothurian), Venus flytrap sea anemone (actinoscyphiid sea anemone), tipod fish (chlorophthalmid tipod fish), flatfish (pleuronectiform flatfish), eel (bongrid conger eel), shrimp (benthic caridean likely nematocarcinid...

Scientists funded by NOAA and the National Science Foundation recorded the deepest erupting volcano yet discovered, describing high-definition video of the undersea eruption as spectacular. Eruption of the West Mata volcano, discovered in May 2009, occurred nearly 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, in an area bounded by Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. We found a type of lava never before seen erupting from an active volcano, and for the first time observed molten lava flowing across...

Scientists funded by NOAA and the National Science Foundation recorded the deepest erupting volcano yet discovered, describing high-definition video of the undersea eruption as spectacular. Eruption of the West Mata volcano, discovered in May 2009, occurred nearly 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, in an area bounded by Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. We found a type of lava never before seen erupting from an active volcano, and for the first time observed molten lava flowing across...

Watch a NOAA video podcast on the NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer, "America's Ship for Ocean Exploration," commissioned in Seattle, WA August 13th, 2008 the ship and crew will undergo field tests off the U.S. West Coast to train operators and test concepts of operations and equipment associated with the ship and its sensors and systems. All this leads to the ship's first full field season of operations in 2009, and a new way of exploring the ocean.

Listen to a NOAA video podcast on the The NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer, "America's Ship for Ocean Exploration," commissioned in Seattle, WA August 13th, 2008 the ship and crew will undergo field tests off the U.S. West Coast to train operators and test concepts of operations and equipment associated with the ship and its sensors and systems. All this leads to the ship's first full field season of operations in 2009, and a new way of exploring the ocean.

Listen to a NOAA podcast on the AUVfest 2008 expedition that will take place in Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay from May 12 through May 23. The event is a demonstration of 13 AUV systems originally developed by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) for mine hunting. As part of a collaborative effort to examine and evaluate the dual use of this technology, eight of these AUVs, and their associated sensors and systems, will also be sent on archaeological missions to shipwreck sites in Narragansett...

Watch a NOAA video podcast on the AUVfest 2008 expedition that will take place in Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay from May 12 through May 23. The event is a demonstration of 13 AUV systems originally developed by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) for mine hunting. As part of a collaborative effort to examine and evaluate the dual use of this technology, eight of these AUVs, and their associated sensors and systems, will also be sent on archaeological missions to shipwreck sites in...

Breathtaking... Nearly 20 years after first finding the sunken remains of the R.M.S. Titanic, marine explorer Robert Ballard returned in June 2004 helped by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Office of Ocean Exploration to study the ship's rapid deterioration. The team worked aboard the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown from May 30 through June 9 spending 11 days at the wreck site, mapping the ship and conducting scientific analysis of its deterioration. Using the Institute...

This 2007 expedition will begin in the port of Manila and take us south through the Sulu Sea to our study site, southeast of the Sulu Archipelago, where the bottom falls off abruptly to the sea floor thousands of meters below. Lying just north of the equator, the Celebes Sea is the center of the most biologically diverse area of the world’s ocean.

Watch a NOAA video podcast on the New Zealand American Submarine Ring of Fire 2007 (NZASRoF'07) expedition that will take place on the Kermadec Arc, the second Ocean Explorer expedition to the Kermadec Arc. Video courtesy of New Zealand American Submarine Ring of Fire 2007 Exploration, NOAA Vents Program, NOAA-OE.

Watch a NOAA video podcast on the Submarine Ring of Fire 2004 (SRoF'04) expedition to the Mariana Arc. This movie shows the discovery of the Champagne vent at northwest Eifuku volcano, where bubbles of liquid carbon dioxide are actively venting from sea-floor hot springs. This unusual phenomenon is due to the fact that the emissions from NW Eifuku volcano are particularly gas-rich. The high pressure at this depth keeps the carbon dioxide in a liquid state. Scientist discovered th Champagne...

This 2007 expedition to the Cayman Islands will set new benchmarks in ocean exploration technical diving research. Remarkable advances in this technology will allow for divers to share the excitement of the rarely explored Twilight Zone discoveries in a much more personal way. Video footage courtesy of Marc Slattery, courtesy of Cayman Islands Twilight Zone 2007 Exploration, NOAA-OE.

This 2007 expedition to the Cayman Islands will set new benchmarks in ocean exploration technical diving research. Remarkable advances in this technology will allow for divers to share the excitement of the rarely explored Twilight Zone discoveries in a much more personal way. Video footage courtesy of Marc Slattery, courtesy of Cayman Islands Twilight Zone 2007 Exploration, NOAA-OE.

This 2007 expedition to the Cayman Islands will set new benchmarks in ocean exploration technical diving research. Remarkable advances in this technology will allow for divers to share the excitement of the rarely explored Twilight Zone discoveries in a much more personal way. Video footage courtesy of Marc Slattery, courtesy of Cayman Islands Twilight Zone 2007 Exploration, NOAA-OE.

In the frigid waters off the coast of Greenland scientists are getting valuable data from narwhals - the most ice loving whales in the world. Narwhals, beluga and bowhead whales, which you can hear in the background, make their homes in the Arctic. There are about 100,000 narwhals in the world, and the vast majority of them - about 50,000 to 70,000 - live in the Arctic waters of Greenland. Audio courtesy of Tracking Narwhals in Greenland 2006-2007, Kristin Laidre, NOAA-OE.

The Crevices at 708 meters (2323 feet) of a hydrothermal vent site are occupied by thriving aggregations of cutthroat (synaphobranchid) eels. These eels, which have now been identified as Dysommina rugosa, are known from trawl samples in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, but have never before been studied in their natural habitat. The only common metazoan (multicellular) animals occupying these low-temperature hydrothermal vents, preliminary work indicates that they use the vent only as a...

While much of under-ice diving is similar to regular diving, there are a few important differences. First, the divers wear drysuits instead of wetsuits. These dry suits are sealed at the wrist and the neck and don't let any water in beyond the seals. Second, under-ice diving is usually performed using compressed air, not other mixed gases and the regulators used are specifically designed to be used in temperatures below freezing. Most different from regular diving operations, under-ice divers...

Watch a NOAA video podcast on the deep-sea cold water corals located and sampled from poorly studied middle slope (360-800 meter) coral banks, from Cape Lookout, NC to southeastern FL covering over 650 nautical miles (1,205 km). Video courtesy of Ross et al, NOAA-OE, HBOI and Art Howard.