Expeditions & Projects

In August 2025, a team of maritime archaeologists and engineers conducted fieldwork in Lake Michigan’s Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast Marine National Sanctuary. Their goal was to test new technology and techniques for exploring deepwater shipwrecks — and learn more about our past.

In July/August 2022, a project team successfully demonstrated the ability to use coordinated uncrewed systems for long-range and long-endurance ocean exploration without a support ship and with advanced near-seafloor navigation capabilities.

A research team developed acoustic techniques to more efficiently find and characterize hydrothermal vents using uncrewed underwater vehicles equipped with multibeam sonars.

From June 15-July 2, 2025, federal and academic scientists explored the deep waters of the Aleutian Arc off Alaska. This ship- and submersible-based expedition gathered vital data about the region’s natural resources and seafloor hazards.

In 2024, a team of researchers began a lab-based project to study the biodiversity of crustaceans collected with trawls from the deep ocean water column off Southern California. 

During their second and final year of fieldwork, this team of engineers and scientists tested two low-cost underwater vehicles during shore-based day operations at the Makapu‘u Precious Coral Bed, a federally protected deepwater habitat off the east coast of Oahu, Hawai‘i.

Using artificial intelligence, roboticists have developed a new way to virtually detect and discover submerged archaeological sites — like shipwrecks. Their approach relies on a machine learning model to automate the search for such sites in multibeam sonar data collected by surface vessels.

From July through October, NOAA Ocean Exploration will conduct three exploratory mapping expeditions on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer in waters of Palau. Honoring the commitment the United States made to Palau in 2022, NOAA is working with the Palau International Coral Reef Research Center (PICRC) to collect high-resolution mapping data over a large area of the Palau National Marine Sanctuary.