Follow along as participants in the cruise provide updates and reflections on their experiences, the science, the technology, and other elements of the expedition.
November 03, 2015
After three months of operations, four cruise legs, 65 days at sea, and 37 remotely operated vehicle dives, the 2015 Hohonu Moana: Exploring Deep Waters off Hawai’i expedition was brought to a close, with many potential discoveries and firsts to report on.
Read moreSeptember 27, 2015 | By Scott C. France
We may be working in the tropics, but it may come as a real surprise to some that down on the deep-sea floor, the bottom waters we are exploring are near freezing temperatures. As an example, on our dive on Hutchinson Seamount, the surface water temperature was 29.6°C (85.6°F) when we deployed the Deep Discoverer remotely operated vehicle (ROV). When we arrived on bottom at 1,700 meters, the in situ temperature had decreased to a near-freezing 2.6°C (36.7°F).
Read moreSeptember 26, 2015 | By Lieutenant Commander James Brinkley
Learn what is it is like to serve as the Executive Officer of NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer.
Read moreSeptember 25, 2015 | By Samantha Brooke
On September 25, 2014, almost exactly 109 years after the first national monument, President Barack Obama issued Proclamation 9173, which extended the boundaries of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.
Read moreSeptember 23, 2015 | By M. Dennis Hanisak
This semester, faculty members John Reed, Joshua Voss, Shirley Pomponi, and Dennis Hanisak at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute are teaching a new graduate course, Ocean Exploration, at the Harbor Branch Exploration Command Center.
Read moreSeptember 22, 2015 | By Mary K. Wicksten
Hermit crabs are unusual in having a soft posterior region, the abdomen, hidden within a snail shell or other covering. A hermit crab must change shells throughout its life as it grows: that is, unless it is a deepwater hermit crab, family Parapaguridae.
Read moreSeptember 21, 2015 | By Kasey Cantwell
Telepresence is both a blessing and a curse. Ninety-five percent of the time it is an amazing tool that allows NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer to tap into the intellectual capital of a science team bigger than what even the largest research vessel could accommodate.
Read moreSeptember 19, 2015 | By Scott C. France
If you follow along with the video stream and listen to the scientists describe the features and animals that appear, you’ll hear many unfamiliar, complicated, and foreign-sounding names. Welcome to the world of scientific nomenclature!
Read moreSeptember 17, 2015 | By Kevin Donmoyer
NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer delivered materials to the Johnston Atoll to help U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service researchers combat the invasive yellow crazy ant.
Read moreSeptember 13, 2015 | By LT Brian Kennedy
Ahh...the feeling I get when the ship starts to move away from the pier for the first time at the start of a cruise is so nice. I can just feel the tension leaving my body and the farther away we get from land, the better I feel. Watching the land drop below the horizon is just a wonderful feeling.
Read moreSeptember 12, 2015 | By Scott C. France
I am thrilled to say that because of my participation on Leg 4 of the Hohonu Moana expedition I will not suffer the melancholy aspect of Violet Fane’s poem that some things “often come too late.”
Read moreSeptember 1, 2015 | By Bruce Mundy
During the expedition’s remotely operated vehicle dive on August 17, we saw a very unusual eel with a long, fleshy extension from its nose. Swimming a mile below the sea surface at a terrace near Gardner Pinnacles in the Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Monument, this eel was both a discovery and a mystery.
Read moreAugust 31, 2015 | By Bruce Mundy
The fishes that we see on all but the shallowest Okeanos Explorer dives live in the habitats of extinct volcanic lava flows – they are volcano fish. Some live near active volcanoes as well as on extinct features
Read moreAugust 30, 2015 | By Meagan R. Putts
In Hawaii, lava flows on the Big Island provide a unique opportunity to examine the development of coral communities across time.
Read moreAugust 28, 2015 | By Frank A. Parrish
In an attempt to understand the flow rate in coral beds, seafloor instruments were deployed in the main Hawaiian Islands in prior years and will be recovered during Leg 3 of the 2015 Hohonu Moana expedition by NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer.
Read moreAugust 21, 2015 | By Kelley Elliott
While the rest of the team went about wrapping up their activities, the Commanding Officer received a call from higher levels in the command: the ship needed to divert course from her current transit and head to Tern Island, French Frigate Shoals, to rescue four scientists.
Read moreAugust 21, 2015 | By Amanda Ziegler
As a fourth year PhD student at the University of Hawaii (UH), I am finally directly involved with my first Okeanos Explorer expedition as an on-shore scientist working from the newly established Exploration Command Center at the UH Manoa.
Read moreAugust 19, 2015 | By Bruce Mundy
The Hohonu Moana expedition in the Hawaiian Islands has an Exploration Command Center at the NOAA Inouye Regional Center (IRC) in Honolulu. The IRC is located on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor.
Read moreAugust 18, 2015 | By Daniel Wagner, Ph.D.
The current expedition aboard NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer has been particularly exciting because it has provided the first images of many deep-water environments in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.
Read moreAugust 15, 2015 | By Dr. Christopher Mah
My name is Dr. Christopher Mah. I am a research collaborator in the Invertebrate Zoology Department at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. I am one of the world’s experts in the biodiversity and evolution of sea stars (also called starfishes or asteroids).
Read moreAugust 13, 2015 | By Jonathan Tree
NOAA's remotely operated vehicle, Deep Discoverer, has been exploring the volcanic rift zone ridges in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument during the Hohonu Moana: Exploring Deep Waters off Hawaiʻi expedition.
Read moreAugust 9, 2015 | By Ensign Nick Pawlenko
This is my third field season with NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer. Having a background in mechanical engineering and an interest in robotics, the remotely operated vehicle cruises have always been my favorite cruises.
Read moreAugust 6, 2015 | By Dr. Michael Garcia
The Hohonu Moana expedition presents an unprecedented opportunity to observe and sample the volcanoes from the Northwest Hawaiian Ridge within the Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Monument.
Read moreAugust 4, 2015 | By Mackenzie Gerringer
If you’ve been tuning in and thinking to yourself, “This deep-sea research thing looks great; get me involved!”, you may be wondering where to start. Here are some thoughts for the prospective student of deep-sea biology.
Read moreAugust 3, 2015 | By Dr. Christopher Kelley
Kanehunamoku Seamount, previously referred to as the seamount north of French Frigate Shoals, was basically just a small set of contour lines on a NOAA nautical chart until 2001.
Read moreJuly 31, 2015 | By Kelley Elliott
After many months of planning and coordination, NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer departed Pearl Harbor, Oahu, this morning at approximately 0930 and got underway to commence Leg 2 of the Hohonu Moana: Exploring Deep Waters off Hawaiʻi Expedition.
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