This project will explore sunken aircraft associated with the Battle of Midway adding an important maritime heritage component to our understanding of the broader history of World War II in the Pacific. 2017 is the 75th Anniversary year of this significant event and this project aims to raise awareness and honor the legacy of the brave men who helped to turn the tide in the Pacific during the course of the Battle of Midway.

We have limited understanding of how the variability of carbonate chemistry and other environmental conditions surrounding deep-sea corals are critical for their long-term adaptation and survival. This project involves a comprehensive multidisciplinary study to explore and characterize two deep coral habitats with contrasting benthic communities on the west Florida slope of the Gulf of Mexico, including the testing of newly developed sensors deployed on an ROV to map and fully resolve the carbonate system at the sites.

Images and video of habitat and organisms from ROV dives under white light; images and video of organisms taken with low light cameras/ Medusa lander/lagoratory images of bioluminescence. Excel database of information about collected samples.

The goal of the Bonaire 2008 expedition is to survey this
unique environment over a greater depth range than can be reached with
compressed air scuba, using three autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs),
technical diving, and (in a future year) a manned
submersible.

Our expedition took us to unexplored waters south of the
Philippine Islands, in search of the strange, and possibly unknown, fishes,
jellyfishes, squids, and shrimps that live in the dark, deep waters of the
Celebes Sea. Surrounded by much shallower ocean waters, the Celebes plunges to
over 5,000 meters (m), and in these waters there may well be species that have
evolved in isolation from other surrounding waters, waiting to be discovered
with modern exploration tools.

Scientists examined the coral-associated invertebrate fauna at three large precious coral beds in the Hawaiian Archipelago, the Makapuu Bed, on the southwest slope of Oahu, the Keahole Bed, on the western slope of Hawaii, and the Cross Seamount Bed.

In EX-11-06, the final cruise involving the NOAA Ship Okeanos
Explorer in the 2011 Field Season, the ship will depart from Pascagoula, MS,
round the Florida Keys, transit along the continental shelf break, and put into
its new home port of Davisville, RI. 24-hour multibeam mapping operations will
be conducted for the entire transit, including scheduled XBT casts for sound
velocity calibration. Exploration mapping activities in the Atlantic, from North

Multibeam and single beam data will be collected 24 hours a day
and XBT casts will be conducted at an interval defined by prevailing
oceanographic conditions, but not to exceed 6 hours. Additionally, EK 60 and
sub-bottom profile data will be collected 24 hours per day. A new EK80
instrument will be tested. The Okeanos Explorer will continue to host NASA's
Maritime Aerosol Network sensors to provide ship-borne aerosol optical depth
measurements from sun photometers for NASA.

Throughout this cruise, multibeam data will be collected 24
hours a day and XBT casts will be conducted every 6 hours. Additionally, EK 60
(split beam) and sub-bottom profile data will be collected 24 hours per day,
with subbottom profile data collection at the discretion of the CO. Onboard
multibeam data processing will be minimal due to limited staffing. Daily or
bi-daily multibeam products will be produced according to established shipboard
SOP and sent to shore through established shipboard SOP. Onshore mapping

Normal underway operations and mapping patch testing.
Bathymetric mapping of either the Murray or Molokai Fracture Zones during the
transit to Hawaii is planned, as allowed by equipment shakedown priorities and
prevailing sea conditions. CTD casts may be requested at strategic locations
along the fracture zone. New equipment in need of shakedown testing includes a
new Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) antenna, a new Keyboard-Video-Monitor
(KVM) system, new Doppler speed log, four new EK 60 single beam sonars, two new