NOAA Ocean Exploration in the Field: 2025

March 17-27, 2025

Live Video

NOAA Ocean Exploration’s 2025 field operations on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer will commence with an expedition off of Hawai‘i to shake down the ship’s remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and mapping systems. The team will conduct rigorous tests to make sure that ROVs Deep Discoverer and Seirios along with the ship’s mapping, telepresence, and other systems needed to conduct scientific activities are ready to go for the remainder of the year. The shakedown will also provide an opportunity to train staff while ensuring that collected data are of the highest quality.

April 8-May 5, 2025

Live Video

NOAA Ocean Exploration will lead a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and mapping expedition on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer to explore deep waters in and around Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, building off three mapping expeditions within the monument in 2024. This expedition will include daytime ROV dives to explore the seafloor and water column, overnight mapping operations, and continuous shoreside participation via telepresence. The expedition is part of Beyond the Blue: Illuminating the Pacific, a multifaceted science campaign designed to raise collective knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of waters in the Pacific Islands region through coordinated mapping and exploration expeditions, data management and sharing, strategic partnerships, and outreach and engagement.

April 26-May 3, 2025

NOAA Ocean Exploration supports Ocean Exploration Trust’s operations on Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus via the NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute to collaboratively advance marine technologies and reduce uncertainties in critical parts of our largely unexplored deep ocean. This shakedown expedition will ensure systems are ready for the 2025 field season. Information about the field season on E/V Nautilus is on Nautilus Live.

May 7-29, 2025

Live Video

Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus will map and explore deep-sea priority areas around the Mariana Islands, one of the most tectonically and volcanically dynamic locations on the planet. Live video from remotely operated vehicle dives will be streamed for public viewing. NOAA Ocean Exploration supports expeditions on E/V Nautilus via the NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute. This expedition is part of the Beyond the Blue: Illuminating the Pacific campaign.

June 2-28, 2025

Live Video

Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus will continue to map and explore deep-sea priority areas around the Mariana Islands. These waters include many unique habitats, including the deepest ocean areas and the largest mud volcanoes on Earth. Live video from remotely operated vehicle dives will be streamed for public viewing. NOAA Ocean Exploration supports expeditions on E/V Nautilus via the NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute. This expedition is part of the Beyond the Blue: Illuminating the Pacific campaign.

Spring/Summer 2025

Principal Investigator: C. Robin Mattheus, Illinois State Geological Survey

Understanding the geography and composition of the lakebeds of the Great Lakes is important for a variety of reasons, including the siting of offshore infrastructure, the mapping of sand and other resources, and designing coastal resiliency projects. Detailed mapping of the surface and subsurface of the lakebed is needed for informed management of coastal regions. Still, the Great Lakes remain understudied in this regard as available datasets are sparse/limited. To address data needs, this project team will assess lake-bottom geology and the rock layers of the shallow subsurface of southwestern Lake Michigan along the coast of Chicago, Illinois. They will use sonar technologies to study the layers of sediment and the shape of the solid rock beneath them and integrate the data they collect with existing geological data and data products to create geological maps. The resulting products will contribute to the foundational understanding of Lake Michigan's geologic history, structure, and composition and guide future exploration, including archaeological investigations of potential pre-contact Native American cultural resources at the bottom of Lake Michigan.

June 15-July 2, 2025

Principal Investigator: Cheryl Morrison, U.S. Geological Survey

The Aleutian Arc is a volcanic arc that includes a chain of islands extending west from the Alaska Peninsula to international waters. The waters surrounding the Aleutian Islands are vast, and the biological and geological resources within them are ecologically and economically important. But, as of January 2025, only 38% of Alaska’s seafloor has been mapped, and even less has been explored. Much of the deep Aleutian Arc is virtually unknown. To advance our scientific knowledge about this region, where the potential for new discoveries is high, this research team will explore and provide initial characterization of high-priority sites in the central and western Aleutian Islands during a ship- and submersible-based expedition. Research targets for exploration and characterization include coral and sponge communities, volcanoes and other seafloor hazards, gas seeps, hydrothermal vents, and critical mineral deposits. Primary operations will include data collection (e.g., video and biological, geological, and water samples) during submersible dives and seafloor mapping. Results from this expedition will inform natural resource management, protection, and stewardship and hazard assessments, benefitting both Alaskan and national economies as well as human health and safety.

This project is also supported by the Office of Naval Research through the National Oceanographic Partnership Program, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and NOAA Integrated Ocean and Coastal Mapping.

June 30-July 3, 2025 (Second of two expeditions)

Principal Investigator: Matthew Johnson-Roberson, Carnegie Mellon University

Deep-sea corals provide habitat for a wide variety of marine life. Despite their importance to the environment, little is known about them and the threats to their survival. To help advance the protection of deep-sea coral ecosystems, this team will improve and validate new, low-cost, open-source, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and develop automatic annotation software. This year, they will test the AUVs and collect data at a site in Hawaiian waters that is known for its high diversity and density of corals. Data collected will be used to generate photometric 3D reconstructions of the seafloor and for the development of the software.

July 2-23, 2025

Live Video

Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus will explore maritime heritage sites in the Solomon Islands’ Iron Bottom Sound, where five major naval battles occurred between August and December 1942. Numerous U.S., Japanese, Australian, and New Zealand military ships remain to be located. Live video from remotely operated vehicle dives will be streamed for public viewing. NOAA Ocean Exploration supports expeditions on E/V Nautilus via the NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute. This expedition is part of the Beyond the Blue: Illuminating the Pacific campaign.

July 2025

Principal Investigator: Russ Green, Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary

Well preserved by cold freshwater, the Great Lakes possess some of the most extraordinary potential for archaeological investigation of historic shipwrecks anywhere in the world. Many of these shipwrecks have yet to be discovered or explored. This research team will explore and document a collection of nationally significant shipwrecks — 5 unknown and 10 known but minimally documented — in the deep waters (130-480 feet) of Lake Michigan’s Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary. They will conduct their investigations using a hybrid autonomous underwater vehicle/remotely operated vehicle (AUV/ROV) equipped with acoustic, imaging, and laser scanning sensors, and develop new archaeological methods developed to capitalize on the efficiencies of autonomous and uncrewed vehicles. This project will result in baseline data and information — including still and video imagery and photogrammetric and laser-scan models — that will inform the sanctuary’s monitoring and preservation efforts and contribute to the understanding of the role of the Great Lakes in our nation’s maritime heritage. In addition, it will advance the field of marine archaeology by introducing a new approach that accelerates the exploration, documentation, and management of collections of maritime heritage sites.

July 27-August 17, 2025

Live Video

Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus will map and explore deep-sea priority areas around the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the vast majority of which has never been mapped or surveyed. Features of interest include unexplored seamounts, ridges and escarpments, and World War II maritime heritage sites. Live video from remotely operated vehicle dives will be streamed for public viewing. NOAA Ocean Exploration supports expeditions on E/V Nautilus via the NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute. This expedition is part of the Beyond the Blue: Illuminating the Pacific campaign.

August 20-September 11, 2025

For the final expedition of 2025, Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus will map the waters surrounding Wake Atoll, one of the most poorly surveyed ocean areas under U.S. jurisdiction. Data will support the management of the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. NOAA Ocean Exploration supports expeditions on E/V Nautilus via the NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute. This expedition is part of the Beyond the Blue: Illuminating the Pacific campaign.

TBD 2025 (Second year of fieldwork)

Principal Investigator: Kaustubha Raghukumar, Integral Consulting Inc.

To advance deepwater soundscape exploration, this team of scientists and engineers is developing the first ever autonomous, near-real-time, directional acoustic profiling float powered by marine renewable energy (ocean thermal energy conversion, OTEC). During this second year of fieldwork, they will demonstrate their float during a longer duration and deeper water test off the coast of Oceanside, California. Also as part of this project, the team will develop soundscape analysis tools to provide insights into acoustic events of interest recorded by the float.

TBD 2025

Principal Investigator: Guangyu Xu, University of Washington

Hydrothermal vents often feature a variety of unique biological communities and metal-rich deposits, making them important to society and economies. However, most hydrothermal vent sites discovered to date are on the deep-ocean floor at great depths below the sea surface. Because of the inherent difficulties of deep-sea exploration and the inadequacy of existing vent-characterization techniques, the majority of the known hydrothermal-vent fields remain poorly studied and many sites are yet to be discovered. To advance our knowledge about hydrothermal vents, this research team will develop an innovative approach to identifying, locating, and characterizing hydrothermal discharge using an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) equipped with coordinated multibeam sonars. After a robust evaluation program, which will include computer simulations and laboratory experiments at an engineering tank facility, the new approach will be demonstrated at an active hydrothermal vent site. Anticipated outputs include seafloor bathymetry, 3D acoustic plume images, quantitative vent maps, and 3D panoramic images of vent sites. By extending the capabilities of AUVs, this project will deliver an efficient approach to collecting comprehensive baseline data about hydrothermal activity needed by researchers and policy makers.