Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration is part of the office of
national marine sanctuaries in the
Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
I work as a marine ecologist, I lead and
coordinate scientific expeditions in support
of resources protection in the area. Exploration
has an enormous value I think, every single one
of us at some point has this dream of becoming
either an astronaut or an explorer and most
people at some point in their lives start
thinking that we know everything there is to
be known, but the truth is that we don't know
even the slightest thing there is about the vast
majority of the what the planet is. In two
thousand fifteen in the expedition with the
Okeanos Explorer we had a total of eighteen
dives, both inside and very close to the
boundaries of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine
National Monument. And in this very short
period of time, just over three weeks, we
imaged many hundreds of species that were not
known to exist in this region. We also
collected a limited amount of samples, so we
came back with thirty five biological
specimens, and every single one of these
specimens turns out to be either completely new
species or a species that did not know
existed here in this area.