The essays below will help you to understand the goals and objectives of the mission and provide additional context and information about the places being explored and the science, tools, and technologies being used.
By Erik Cordes & Caitlin Adams
From August 19 to September 2, 2018, NOAA and partners at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the U.S. Geological Survey will conduct a research expedition on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution-operated R/V Atlantis to collect critical baseline information about deepwater habitats offshore the U.S. Mid- and South Atlantic.
Read moreBy Sandra Brooke
From the tip of Miami to North Carolina, the deep seafloor is comprised of hundreds of miles of rugged peaks, ledges, and mounds, which are scoured and swept clean of sediment by the ever-present, powerful Gulf Stream current. Deep-sea corals thrive in this cold, dark, hostile environment, creating large complex structures that provide shelter, feeding, and nursery habitat to countless other invertebrates and fishes.
Read moreBy Cheryl Morrison
Carved into the shelf from North Carolina through Canada are 40 undersea canyons that may be 10 to 100 miles long, with some deeper than the Grand Canyon. The complex topography and geology in canyons provides many habitat types including steep walls, rocky outcrops, and ledges where sensitive deep-sea coral communities often live, as well as sedimented areas where additional fish and invertebrate species thrive.
Read moreBy Mandy Joye & Erik Cordes
Cold seeps create very interesting environments that provide resources and habitat for a wide variety of creatures. Bacteria and other microbes feed directly off of the gasses released (mostly methane and hydrogen sulfide), and animals like mussels and clams that have bacterial symbionts that use these chemicals also thrive there.
Read moreBy Jay Lunden
If you ask any marine scientist to describe their scientific bucket list, there is one item that would likely appear: a dive in the human-occupied submersible Alvin. For those of us that are fortunate enough to check this box off our lists, a dive in Alvin creates an opportunity to visit an environment most humans rarely think of, allowing us to physically visit the space that we study, collect samples, and enhance our understanding and the way that we think about the deep ocean.
Read more
