CANCELED – Explore the Deep LIVE

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has canceled the plan dive. 

While enjoying a stroll through the steps of heroes Tuesday, April 24 aboard the USS Yorktown, take a few minutes to watch as history is made in our Smokey Stover Theater.  We are proud to provide a live video feed of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) expedition to collect information about the unknown and poorly understood Gulf of Mexico.  The ship on which the dive will be based is named Okeanos Explorer.  Before being utilized by NOAA, Okeanos Explorer served the U.S. Navy as a surveillance T-AGOS Class ship designed to collect acoustical data in support of anti-submarine warfare operations during the Cold War.

The crew aboard the Okeanos Explorer is the only U.S. vessel dedicated to the exploration of our ocean.  A few goals of the dive are to:  study areas relevant to resource managers such as essential fish habitats, investigate the geology of the Gulf of Mexico, and to collect high-resolution bathymetry in areas of no sonar data.

The expedition will explore deep coral and sponge communities, bottom fish habitats, undersea canyons, shipwrecks and a variety of chemosynthetic habitats including cold seeps, mud volcanoes, and brine pools.  The real-time video will be watch by scientists and students across the world.