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Océano Profundo 2018: Exploring Deep-Sea Habitats off Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands was a 22-day telepresence-enabled expedition on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer to collect data on priority exploration areas identified by the ocean management and scientific communities. During the expedition, scientists explored a diversity of features with mapping and remotely operated vehicle (ROV) operations, including deep-sea fish habitats, deep-sea coral and sponge communities, midwater habitats, submarine canyons, submarine landslides, and other unique geological features.

Major accomplishments of this expedition are summarized below. For more information, download the summary fact sheet (pdf, 3.4 MB).

Water Column and Deep-sea Discoveries

Throughout the expedition, scientists encountered coral and sponge communities during every dive in newly mapped areas and in previously unexplored areas with many dives having high to medium density or abundance. A rare sighting of a coral community at a depth of over 2,000 meters (6,500 feet) is currently among the deepest high-density communities known from the U.S. Caribbean Region.

The expedition also included exploration of the water column, the largest and least explored biome on the planet by volume. Scientists conducted midwater explorations at depths ranging from 300 to 900 meters (984 to 2953 feet) during two dives to investigate the diversity and abundance of the largely unknown pelagic fauna of the region.

Not only do these discoveries change our expectations in terms of what lies in the deep sea, since we can't manage and protect what we don't know, all of these observations can help to inform management of these sensitive habitats and potential resources within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone.

New Species, New Records, New Observations

During ROV dives, the team collected both biological and geological samples, adhering to the Okeanos Explorer sampling objective of collecting a limited number of samples in order to characterize a dive site. The team documented rare species including five species of sea stars, some of which might be new to science; rare behaviors; and animals at deeper depths than expected, including the commercially important queen snapper seen at a record depth of 539 meters (1,768 feet). Other commercially important fish species seen included the silk snapper and misty grouper. The team also had a very rare observation of a catshark embryo swimming in a translucent egg case.

When combined with other deep-sea and water column discoveries, these data will be important for increasing our ability to manage marine resources, as well as increasing our understanding of deep-sea ecosystem connectivity across the Atlantic basin.

Geologic Insights

During the Océano Profundo 2018 expedition, the Okeanos Explorer team mapped over 14,959 square kilometers; several of theses areas had never been mapped before, including deep-sea areas around Mona Island, Saba Valley, Engaño Canyon, and Engaño Bank. During ROV dives, geological samples were collected that will help increase understanding of the geologic history of the region and to characterize habitat substrate.

Data Delivery

Data collected during this expedition are intended to inform initial characterization of the areas visited and include multibeam, single beam, subbottom, ADCP, XBT, CTD, and dissolved oxygen profiles; surface oceanographic and meteorological observations; video and imagery; and physical specimens. All data from this expedition will be publicly available through national archives and a direct link to expedition data will be posted on this website once available.

Outreach and Participation

63 scientists, resource managers, and students from 15 U.S. states and seven international countries participated regularly in the expedition-mostly from shore. Additionally, ship tours, ship-to-shore interactions, and live online streaming of ROV dives to the general public opened a window of understanding into the deep sea for audiences around the world.

Océano Profundo 2018: Exploring Deep-Sea Habitats off Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands was one of several expeditions being conducted from NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer as part of the Atlantic Seafloor Partnership for Integrated Research and Exploration (ASPIRE) campaign, a major multi-year, multi-national collaborative field program focused on raising collective knowledge and understanding of the North Atlantic Ocean. Major expedition accomplishments are linked to ASPIRE goals in the summary fact sheet (pdf, 3.4 MB).

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Mission Summary: Exploring Deep-Sea Habitats off Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands: NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research

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Océano Profundo 2018: Exploring Deep-Sea Habitats off Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands was a 22-day telepresence-enabled expedition on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer to collect data on priority exploration areas identified by the ocean management and scientific communities.

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Deep Diving for Metals: Visualizing Ocean Mining

The mining sector has been one of the biggest beneficiaries in the COVID-19 recovery.

Several countries' recovery packages have ignited demand for commodities like copper, iron ore and lithium. Given that more metals are necessary for electrification and the clean energy transition, many companies are looking at an unexplored market: ocean mining.

Mining of the Deep Sea is still under study but metals are abundant on the seafloor. Reserves are estimated to be worth anywhere from $8 trillion to more than $16 trillion.

This infographic from Prospector provides a visual overview of the seabed mining process.

Down in the Depths

The most prolific area for ocean mining is the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ) in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and Mexico. Almost 20 international mining companies have contracts to explore the region which spans over 5,000 kilometers.

Most of the metals are found in potato-sized rock-like polymetallic nodules. Millions of years old, the nodules grow by absorbing metals from the seawater, expanding slowly around the core of shell, bone, or rock.
Source: The Pew Charitable Trusts
It is estimated that there are 21 billion tonnes of polymetallic nodules resting on the ocean floor in the CCZ, containing an estimated:

6 billion tonnes of manganese

226 million tonnes of copper - about 25% of land-based reserves

94,000 million tonnes of cobalt - about six times as much as current land-based reserves

270 million tonnes of nickel - 100 times the annual global nickel production in 2019

Cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts are found on the sides of underwater mountain ranges and seamounts. Similar to nodules, these crusts form over millions of years as metal compounds in the water. Roughly 57% of them are located in the Pacific.

Polymetallic sulfide deposits formed after seawater seeps into volcanic rocks can be found along tectonic plate boundaries on the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean.

How Does Ocean Mining Work?

Extraction of minerals from the seafloor is planned to involve either modified dredging (for nodules), cutting (for massive sulphides and crusts), and transport of the material as a slurry in a riser or basket system to a surface support vessel.

The mineral-bearing material is then processed in a ship (cleaning and dewatering - with the wastewater and sediment being returned to the ocean) and then transferred to a barge for transport to shore where it will be further processed to extract the target metals.

Towards a Greener Future

Growing demand for batteries to power electric cars and store wind and solar energy has driven up the cost of many metals and bolstered the business case for seabed mining.

According to a study published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, producing battery metals from nodules could reduce emissions of CO² by 70-75%, cut land use by 94% and eliminate 100% of solid waste.

Here is a look at how ocean and land mining compares:
Source: The Metals Company
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) has so far approved 28 exploration contracts in the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans, covering 1.3 million square kilometers of the ocean floor.

With many companies turning their eyes to the unexplored riches of the ocean, seabed mining could offer a wealth of untapped minerals on the ocean floor.

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Deep Diving for Metals: Visualizing How Ocean Mining Works

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The mining sector has been one of the biggest beneficiaries in the COVID-19 recovery. Several countries' recovery packages have ignited demand for commodities like copper, iron ore and lithium. Given that more metals are necessary for electrification and the clean energy transition, many companies are looking at an unexplored market: ocean mining.

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The Future of Space Exploration Starts on Earth

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The Space Launch System (SLS), Orion spacecraft and commercial crew and cargo vehicles are complementing initiatives that will support NASA's space exploration goals.

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Space Exploration Isometric Infographics Stock Vector - Illustration of comet, planet: 235319006

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Space Exploration Isometric Infographics. Illustration about comet, planet, star, spacesuit, earth, satellite, galactic, rocket, voyage, spaceship, astronaut, exploration - 235319006

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Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under.

Get Started

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online access fun thousands children great kids ebooks books

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Should we be more focused on underwater or outer space exploration? Book Collection on Epic

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Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under. Get Started

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Why do we need to explore the deep ocean?

Sky News will be joining scientists from the Nekton mission as they explore Aldabra - one of the world's largest and most remote coral atolls - 600 miles south-west of the Seychelles. The boat - Ocean Zephyr - will be leaving from Bremerhaven in Germany travelling through the Mediterranean Sea before going through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea until it reaches the remote island of Aldabra in the Seychelles. From there, submarines on board will attempt to dive to a depth of 300 meters - the equivalent of the Eiffel Tower. Our science correspondent Thomas Moore has more. Sky's Ocean Rescue campaign encourages people to reduce their single-use plastics. You can find out more about the campaign and how to get involved at www.skyoceanrescue.com SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube channel for more videos: http://www.youtube.com/skynews Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/skynews and https://twitter.com/skynewsbreak Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skynews Follow us on

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Why do we need to explore the deep ocean?... - SafeShare

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Sky News will be joining scientists from the Nekton mission as they explore Aldabra - one of the world's largest and most remote coral atolls - 600 miles south-west of the Seychelles.

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Why Ocean Exploration Matters More than Space

This #WorldOceansWeek, we want to remind people that there's a whole "universe" waiting to be explored-right here in our own oceans. We often forget that, by the very nature of living on #Earth, we've already won the intergalactic space race (and if space has taught us anything, it's that there's no place like Earth). So much so, that the search for extraterrestrial life is typically referred to as the search for "Earths," which puts the whole pursuit in good context. For example, #DidYouKnow life on Earth probably came from hot springs on the ocean floor? Let's go back in time: The year is 1977 and everyone on Earth thinks life depends on sunlight. That's when Robert Ballard (the guy who discovered the Titanic-#Legend) flips the universe on its head. Eight-thousand feet below the surface, his expedition stumbles upon a mysterious ecosystem on the seafloor that thrives on volcanic energy. Hydrothermal vents, as they would come to be known, turned out to be the basis of an entirely

Launched as a beta version in 2009, SafeShare has gained popularity as the safest way to watch and share YouTube and Vimeo videos, and is widely used all around the globe by educators so their students can watch educational material without the fear of inappropriate videos showing up.

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Why Ocean Exploration Matters More than Sp... - SafeShare

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This #WorldOceansWeek, we want to remind people that there's a whole "universe" waiting to be explored-right here in our own oceans. We often forget that, by the very nature of living on #Earth, we've already won the intergalactic space race (and if space has taught us anything, it's that there's no place like Earth).

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Why Should We Explore Space Over the Oceans? | #AskAbby | The Mars Generation

Watch 10 Best Space Movies Ever! ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk6pihK2K0s&t=1s Subscribe ► http://bit.ly/2ySGtvd Season 2, Episode 11 of The #AskAbby Space and Science Show Presented by TheMarsGeneration.org Why should we explore space over the oceans? People often debate about whether we should invest more into exploring space or Earth's oceans. The oceans are a part of the planet we live on, yet historically, we've invested a lot more into space exploration. What are the benefits of exploring space? Join Astronaut Abby as she explains why she and so many others are fascinated by this area of research! Includes answers to questions including: How much do we spend on space and ocean exploration? Why has space exploration seemingly taken precedence over ocean research? What are the benefits of each? Is it more difficult to explore the ocean or space? What challenges do each pose? Most importantly, which is going to help us get more food?? You might know that answer...But wat

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Why Should We Explore Space Over the Ocean... - SafeShare

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Watch 10 Best Space Movies Ever! ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk6pihK2K0s&t=1s Subscribe ► http://bit.ly/2ySGtvd Season 2, Episode 11 of The #AskAbby Space and Science Show Presented by TheMarsGeneration.org Why should we explore space over the oceans? People often debate about whether we should invest more into exploring space or Earth's oceans.

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Neil deGrasse Tyson - We Stopped Dreaming (Episode 1)

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Neil deGrasse Tyson - We Stopped Dreaming ... - SafeShare

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Launched as a beta version in 2009, SafeShare has gained popularity as the safest way to watch and share YouTube and Vimeo videos, and is widely used all around the globe by educators so their students can watch educational material without the fear of inappropriate videos showing up.

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Help Save our Oceans! : A Groundbreaking Undersea Expedition with Fabien Cousteau

A HISTORIC MISSION TO SUPPORT ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE VITAL TO OUR OCEAN'S HEALTH! Join Fabien Cousteau, grandson of famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau as he and his aquanauts explore the depths of the ocean in order to research the effects of climate change on our corals, and deep-sea living on our bodies. Cousteau will be joined by scientists and filmmakers in the Aquarius Reef Base underwater laboratory so that those up above can share in every magical sea-sight. Skype in the Classroom will connect the aquanauts to millions of school children so that they too can learn stewardship of our seas! This 31-day groundbreaking mission will be the longest amount of time anyone has lived undersea. Support us by going to... http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mission-31 and https://www.facebook.com/CousteauMission31 Check out our Indiegogo campaign to view the many cool perks you can get for supporting this amazing project. And share away...

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Help Save our Oceans! : A Groundbreaking U... - SafeShare

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A HISTORIC MISSION TO SUPPORT ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE VITAL TO OUR OCEAN'S HEALTH! Join Fabien Cousteau, grandson of famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau as he and his aquanauts explore the depths of the ocean in order to research the effects of climate change on our corals, and deep-sea living on our bodies.

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Bill Nye: Why We Explore | Big Think... - SafeShare

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Bill Nye: Why We Explore
New videos DAILY: https://bigth.ink
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Bill Nye has many feathers in his cap — he’s the CEO of…

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I am convinced that if NASA were to disappear tomorrow, if we never put up another Hubble Space Telescope, never put another human being in space, people in this country would be profoundly distraught. Americans would feel that we had lost something that matters, that our best days were behind us, and they would feel themselves somehow diminished. Yet I think most would be unable to say why.

There are many good reasons to continue to explore space, which most Americans have undoubtedly heard. Some have been debated in public policy circles and evaluated on the basis of financial investment. In announcing his commitment to send the country back to the moon and, later, on to Mars, President Bush quite correctly said that we do it for purposes of scientific discovery, economic benefit, and national security. I've given speeches on each of those topics, and these reasons can be clearly shown to be true. And presidential science advisor Jack Marburger has said that questions about space exploration come down to whether we want to bring the solar system within mankind's sphere of economic influence. I think that is extraordinarily well put.

But these are not reasons that would make Americans miss our space program. They are merely the reasons we are most comfortable discussing. I think of them as "acceptable reasons" because they can be logically defended. When we contemplate committing large sums of money to a project, we tend to dismiss reasons that are emotional or value-driven or can't be captured on a spreadsheet. But in space exploration those are the reasons-what I think of as "real reasons"-that are the most important.

When Charles Lindbergh was asked why he crossed the Atlantic, he never once answered that he wanted to win the $25,000 that New York City hotel owner Raymond Orteig offered for the first nonstop aircraft flight between New York and Paris. Burt Rutan and his backer, Paul Allen, certainly didn't develop a private spacecraft to win the Ansari X-Prize for the $10 million in prize money. They spent twice as much as they made. Sergei Korolev and the team that launched Sputnik were not tasked by their government to be the first to launch an artificial satellite; they had to fight for the honor and the resources to do it.

I think we all know why people strive to accomplish such things. They do so for reasons that are intuitive and compelling to all of us but that are not necessarily logical. They're exactly the opposite of acceptable reasons, which are eminently logical but neither intuitive nor emotionally compelling.

First, most of us want to be, both as individuals and as societies, the first or the best in some activity. We want to stand out. This behavior is rooted in our genes. We are today the descendants of people who survived by outperforming others. Without question that drive can be carried to an unhealthy extreme; we've all seen more wars than we like. But just because the trait can be taken too far doesn't mean that we can do without it completely.

A second reason is curiosity. Who among us has not had the urge to know what's over the next hill? What child has not been drawn to explore beyond the familiar streets of the neighborhood?

Finally, we humans have, since the earliest civilizations, built monuments. We want to leave something behind to show the next generation, or the generations after that, what we did with our time here. This is the impulse behind cathedrals and pyramids, art galleries and museums.

Cathedral builders would understand what I mean by real reasons. The monuments they erected to the awe and mystery of their God required a far greater percentage of their gross domestic product than we will ever put into the space business, but we look back across 600 or 800 years of time, and we are still awed by what the builders accomplished. Those buildings, therefore, also stand as monuments to the builders.

The return the cathedral builders made on their investment could not have been summarized in a cost/benefit analysis. They began to develop civil engineering, the core discipline for any society if it wishes to have anything more than thatched huts. They gained societal advantages that were probably even more important than learning how to build walls and roofs. For example, they learned to embrace deferred gratification, not just on an individual level, where it is a crucial element of maturity, but on a societal level, where it is equally vital. The people who started the cathedrals didn't live to finish them. The society as a whole had to be dedicated to the completion of those projects. We owe Western civilization as we know it today to that kind of thinking: the ability to have a constancy of purpose across years and decades.

It is my contention that the products of our space program are today's cathedrals. The space program satisfies the desire to compete, but in a safe and productive manner, rather than in a harmful one. It speaks abundantly to our sense of human curiosity, of wonder and awe at the unknown. Who can watch people assembling the greatest engineering project in the history of mankind-the International Space Station-and not wonder at the ability of people to conceive and to execute the project? And it also addresses our need for leaving something for future generations.

Of course the space program also addresses the acceptable reasons, and in the end this is imperative. Societies will not succeed in the long run if they place their resources and their efforts in enterprises that, for whatever reason, don't provide concrete value. But I believe that projects done for the real reasons that motivate humans also serve the acceptable reasons. In that sense, the value of space exploration really is in its spinoffs, as many have argued. But it's not in spinoffs like Teflon and Tang and Velcro, as the public is so often told-and which in fact did not come from the space program. And it's not in spinoffs in the form of better heart monitors or cheaper prices for liquid oxygen for hospitals, although the space program's huge demand for liquid oxygen spurred fundamental improvements in the production and handling of this volatile substance. The real spinoffs are, just as they were for cathedral builders, more fundamental.

Anyone who wants to build spacecraft, who wants to be a subcontractor, or who even wants to supply bolts and screws to the space industry must work to a higher level of precision than human beings had to do before the space industry came along. And that standard has influenced our entire industrial base, and therefore our economy.

As for national security, what is the value to the United States of being involved in enterprises which lift up human hearts everywhere? What is the value to the United States of being a leader in such efforts, in projects in which every technologically capable nation wants to take part? The greatest strategy for national security, more effective than having better guns and bombs than everyone else, is being a nation that does the kinds of things that make others want to do them with us.

What do you have to do, how do you have to behave, to do space projects? You have to value hard work. You have to live by excellence, or die from the lack of it. You have to understand and practice both leadership and followership. You have to build partnerships; leaders need partners and allies, as well as followers.

You have to accept the challenge of the unknown, knowing that you might fail, and to do so not without fear but with mastery of fear and a determination to go anyway. You have to defer gratification because we work on things that not all of us will live to see-and we know it.

We now believe that 95 percent of the universe consists of dark energy or dark matter, terms for things that we as yet know nothing about. Is it even conceivable that one day we won't learn to harness them? As cavemen learned to harness fire, as people two centuries ago learned to harness electricity, we will learn to harness these new things. It was just a few years ago that we confirmed the existence of dark matter, and we would not have done so without the space program. What is the value of knowledge like that? I cannot begin to guess. A thousand years from now there will be human beings who don't have to guess; they will know, and they will know we gave this to them.

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Ambition, curiosity, and a reason the NASA Administrator admits has nothing to do with economic benefit.

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For centuries, people dreamed about leaving Earth and travelling to other worlds. Then, in 1957, the Soviet Union made the first small step into space by launching a small satellite, called Sputnik. The Space Age had begun.

Early space activities were dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union. However, as time went by, Europe and Japan also learned how to build their own satellites and rockets. Today, countries such as China, India, South Korea, Israel and Brazil are developing their own space industries.

During the last 60 years, unmanned probes have been sent towards all of the planets in the Solar System, as well as many satellites, asteroids and comets. Spacecraft have soft-landed on half a dozen worlds, while rovers have driven over the surfaces of the Moon and Mars. The Sun has also been explored in great detail by a fleet of spacecraft.

Many space observatories, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, have been launched to look at the distant Universe. They have sent back some amazing pictures taken in visible light. But they can also observe stars and galaxies at wavelengths that are invisible to human eyes - radio, infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays. The flood of discoveries has changed the way we look at the Universe.

More than 500 people have also flown in space since Yuri Gagarin paved the way in 1961. 20 people have travelled to the Moon and 12 of them have walked on the Moon. Space stations have been built, and astronauts have learned to live and work in space for many months, or even years.

Last modified 26 January 2011

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For centuries, people dreamed about leaving Earth and travelling to other worlds. Then, in 1957, the Soviet Union made the first small step into space by launching a small satellite, called Sputnik. The Space Age had begun.

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Amitai Etzioni says there are bigger priorities than a new push for manned exploration in space

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Apollo was the NASA program that resulted in American astronauts' making a total of 11 spaceflights and walking on the moon.

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What It's Like to Spend a Month Under the Sea

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Live Science caught up with Fabien Cousteau, who spent a month in an undersea lab this past summer.