Okeanos Explorer visits Saipan after first leg of ’16 Marianas exploration

Mechanical engineer Karl McCletchie shows the HD camera of the Deep Discoverer, the remotely operated vehicle system aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship Okeanos Explorer. The ship is currently on Saipan after the first leg of the 2016: Deepwater Exploration of the Marianas expedition.  (Frauleine Villanueva-Dizon)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Ship Okeanos Explorer has docked on Saipan after the first leg of the 2016: Deepwater Exploration of the Marianas expedition.

Dubbed as “America’s Ship for Ocean Exploration,” Okeanos Explorer is the only federally funded U.S. ship assigned to systematically explore the world’s largely unknown ocean for the purpose of discovery and the advancement of knowledge.

While the ship uses telepresence by using real-time broadband satellite communications—the reason behind several of their discoveries going viral on the Internet as early as their second day of the expedition—about 200 Saipan residents were able to personally see where the action happens yesterday.

There are about 40 crew on board the ship and aside from the science team, Okeanos Explorer is operated by the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps and civilians headed by Commanding Officer commander Mark Wetzler.

The current mission of the Okeanos Explorer, which started last April 20 and will last until July 10, will investigate and document deepwater environments in and around the CNMI and the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument.

“In order to plan the expedition, we engaged local CNMI agencies as well as a lot of different groups. NOAA and the CNMI are both co-managers of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument, but it’s not limited to just the monument itself,” expedition manager Kelley Elliott said.

The expedition is part of the three-year Campaign to Address the Pacific monument Science, Technology, and Ocean NEeds (CAPSTONE), a foundational science effort focused on deepwater areas of U.S. marine protected areas in the central and western Pacific.

Some of the focus of the dive, according to Elliot, was finding bottom fish fishery habitats, precious corals, and high-density deepsea corals.

“We actually only have anecdotal reports that precious corals existed. Precious corals are of interest and exploited because they’re used to be treated as high-value jewelry. We confirmed presence of precious corals here,” Elliot said.

She added that they found deepsea corals, one area even as large a football field.

“This whole expedition has been planned in such a way that all of the ROV dives and mapping that we do are specifically to support management interests, both for NOAA and the management agencies here in the Marianas,” Elliot added.

After the first leg, Okeanos Explorer will stay on Saipan until May 19, and then proceed to its second leg which is the mapping focused on the northern part of the CNMI and the MTMNM until June 11. It will make a port call in Guam on June 12 to 16 before moving on to the third leg on June 17-July 10 which will again utilize the ROV and do more mapping.

ROV: Seirios and Deep Discoverer

Among the unique features of the Okeanos Explorer is its two-body 6,000-meter remotely operated vehicle (ROV) system comprised of camera sled Seirios and Deep Discoverer.

“Seirios’ job is to stay up above the sea floor about 60 feet up and shine light down on Deep Discoverer working, so that we get spatial view of what’s around us,” Ocean/Mechanical Engineer Karl McCletchie, who helped build and operate the ROV system, said.

“Of course the star is the Deep Discoverer, it takes all of the close up videos.

The ROV has nine video cameras including two high definition cameras and 20 LED lights to help illuminate the pitch-dark waters. It has thrusters to go down the sea floor and can take pressures almost 600 times that at sea level.

The system also has what is called “Kraft predator manipulator” to take samples from the ocean such as rocks and corals.

“It can delicately pluck small pieces of coral but it can also lift 200 lbs at full reach,” McCletchie said.

Mapping the MTMNM

While some may put mapping of the sea floor on the backseat because it’s tedious and not as exciting as ROV dives, for experts, mapping is the first step of ocean exploration.

This mission uses the ship’s deepwater mapping systems which includes Kongsberg EM302 multi-beam sonar, EK60 split-beam fisheries sonars, Knudsen 3260 chirp sub-bottom profiler sonar and Teledyne Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers.

NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research Mapping Lead Lindsay McKenna explains how basic data of the sea floor is needed for ROV dives to be allowed.

She showed an area of the marine monument based on satellite imagery based on gravitational anomaly where the sea floor is not as defined in mapping as the opposed to what they are doing on the expedition.

“They’re not going to let us deploy an ROV like that. It’s too dangerous. These vehicles are so expensive that you can’t just blindly put them on the seafloor like that,” McKenna said.

While there were earlier scientists who were able to explore the deepest part of the Marianas Trench, Okeanos Explorer’s equipment has limitations.

“Our system’s not meant to map the bottom of the Mariana Trench, it won’t let us map deeper than 10,000 meters,” McKenna said.

Amazing discoveries

Some of the latest discoveries and cool new species that the team has already found deep in the monument are already shared online and has gone viral such as predator sponges, a deep-sea holothurian at Fina Nagu Caldera D, a stunningly beautiful jellyfish seen at “Enigma Seamount,” and Basket Star City.

There were a lot of new species discovered, according to the scientists.

For Dr. Diva Amon, the Biology Science Team Lead from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, the most exciting find were the hydrothermal vents.

“We came upon this 10-storey high chimney that was just pouring out black fluid and the best thing about these environments is they have thousands upon thousands of animals living on them because they have a huge amount of food there,” Amon said.

“We saw everything there from hairy snails to blind shrimps that have confined bacteria the size of their heads,” she added.

NOAA Cooperative Institute for Ocean Exploration, Research, and Technology Associate Director and Geology Science Team Lead Dr. Deborah Glickson agrees that the vents were some of the most exciting ones, especially as she is a marine geologist with a background in hydrothermal vent geology.

She said there are at least five vents and probably more.

Amon said there were at lot of weird and crazy things down at sea but it was also exciting that they were the ones who were the first to see them.

“There were so many interesting fish, fish that actually walked. They have these modified fins and they walk on the seafloor,” Amon said.

During dives, small samples are taken, and according to Glickson, biological samples are brought to the Smithsonian and geological samples are brought to Oregon State University.

“Some of them are still alive when they come up. By the time we have finished processing them, there are no longer alive. Especially for the deepsea organisms, the pressure change is just too great for them,” Glickson said, when asked if there are live samples taken.

However, aside from the exciting discoveries, there were also disheartening ones. During the first dives of the ROV, trash was found on some of the deepest parts of the ocean.

Amon said they saw a Spam can, beer can, Japanese coffee can, plastic bag, jeans, and rope at about five kilometers deep.

“We did 19 dives and we only saw nine pieces of trash and on only two areas,” Amon said.

“It still breaks your heart to see that,” she added, “It’s really sad but I’ve worked in many deep sea areas in the world and I’ve never been on an expedition where we didn’t see trash.”

Amon said it sends out the message that we should all be responsible about trash and continue reducing them and avoid them getting onto the ocean.

“It’s really sad the fact that the place even where humans don’t go we can still have an impact,” Amon said.