Gulf of Mexico 2012 Expedition
NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research
From March to April 2012, a team of scientists and technicians both at-sea and on shore will conduct exploratory investigations on the diversity and distribution of deep-sea habitats and marine life in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The 56-day expedition is divided into three 'legs.'
Through discussions and information stemming from the May 2011 Atlantic Basin Workshop, Fall 2011 Gulf of Mexico mapping expedition, and Leg I of the 2012 Gulf of Mexico expedition, NOAA and the broader science community have identified a number of exciting targets to explore during Legs II and III. In the coming weeks, we expect to explore cold seeps, deep coral communities, undersea canyons, shipwrecks – and perhaps even mud volcanos and brine pools.
The expedition also marks the return of the Institute for Exploration’s Little Hercules remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and NOAA’s Seirios camera sled and lighting platform to the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer.
When these systems are deployed from the ship, we will be able to provide scientists and the audiences onshore with real-time video footage from deepwater areas in important, yet largely unknown, U.S. waters.
Watch LIVE as scientists explore the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
You can access the NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer Gulf of Mexico 2012 Expedition News feed here:
Updates & Logs
Click images or links below for detailed mission logs and updates.
April 30 Log Students from two maritime academies
in high schools from Houston, Texas, joined the regional winners of the National Ocean Sciences Bowl from a third Houston high school, to tour NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer
, America’s ship for ocean exploration, while the ship was docked in Galveston.
April 29 Log
The third and final cruise
of the Okeanos Explorer’s
2012 Gulf of Mexico Expedition had three primary objectives.
April 24 Log During our exploration
we have encountered deep-sea holothuroids, also known as “sea cucumbers,” which can manage this buoyancy task remarkably well. So well that we have to ask: How do they do it?
April 23 Log
Morale is just as important
as every other facet of a successful journey on board the Okeanos Explorer;
it is an assigned collateral duty that is an essential part of the seafaring way of life.
April 22 Log On Friday
, the Okeanos Explorer
and her tandem remotely operated vehicles (ROV), Little Hercules
, dove on a never before seen area of the seafloor in Ewing Bank block 915 (EW915), 130 miles south of New Orleans.
April 21 Log A famous quote
attributed to Louis Pasteur translates as, "In the field of observation chance only favors the prepared mind."
April 20 Log
During yesterday's dive, we searched for natural hydrocarbon seeps
— areas where oil and natural gas slowly leak out of the seafloor. This is an entirely natural phenomenon and an important characteristic of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem.
April 18 Log Dive 06 of this expedition
really began about seven months ago during what we call a water column mapping cruise on the Okeanos Explorer
April 17 Log As with most of the systems
aboard the Okeanos Explorer
, the video system and the video engineers that operate it play an important role in the ship’s mission of systematic ocean exploration.
April 15 Log The third leg of the Okeanos Explorer
Gulf of Mexico mission is operating in a part of the Gulf, the oldest sediments of which are part of the upward-moving Louann Formation.
April 14 Log Ocean exploration
is commonly thought of in spatial
terms, e.g., the creation of maps of previously unobserved seafloor. However, it has an equally important temporal
component which addresses how ocean processes change through time.
April 11 Log Think of your last road trip.
It is likely you pored over maps, plotted your journey (possibly even rerouted it), fueled up, (hopefully) gave the vehicle a check-up, buckled everyone in, and were on your way.
April 4 Log An interesting challenge
was presented to the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) team last week: Develop a method to drop syntactic