Listen to a NOAA podcast on the GalAPAGoS: Where Ridge Meets Hotspot expedition, where scientists for the first time found black chimney smokers and explored undersea volcanoes. Audio courtesy of UCSB, Univ. S. Carolina, NOAA, WHOI.

GalAPAGoS: Where Ridge Meets Hotspot 2005

NOAA Ocean Explorer is a website for all who wish to learn about, discover, and virtually explore the ocean realm. It provides public access to current information on ocean explorations and activities. Site visitors can follow explorations in near real-time, learn about exploration technologies, and observe remote marine flora and fauna in the colorful multimedia gallery. While we are not current adding content to iTunes, you can find us at http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov or on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/oceanexplorergov.

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A compilation of video clips collected in deepwater by the Little Hercules Remotely Operated Vehicle and camera platform during an ROV shakedown cruise aboard NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer offshore Kona, Hawaii (March 2010). The video footage shows a pelagic sea cucumber (apodid holothurian), Venus flytrap sea anemone (actinoscyphiid sea anemone), tipod fish (chlorophthalmid tipod fish), flatfish (pleuronectiform flatfish), eel (bongrid conger eel), shrimp (benthic caridean likely nematocarcinid shrimp), actiniid Bolocera-like sea anemone with a galatheid crab, Glass sponge and demospongid with hermit crab, and hexactinellid (glass) sponge next to a primnoid coral. Video Credit: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.

NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer: "Highlight" video offshore Kona, Hawaii

Mendocino Ridge 4,600ft gas plume discovery off the California coast. Okeanos Explorer, "America's Ship for Ocean Exploration", is equipped with the latest in technology systems, including multibeam sonar. This technology involves sending beams of sonar to the ocean floor and measuring the amount of time it takes for those beams to bounce back to the ship. In doing so, the sonar creates a 3-D "sound picture", or map, of the seafloor. While the ship was testing its sonar off the coast of California, the sound waves bounced off gas in the water column, creating a remarkable image of a gas plume that rose 4,600 feet from the seafloor. A landslide area at the base of the plume has led some scientists to believe that the plume might be methane, released by the landslide from methane hydrates. Okeanos Explorer is preparing to explore the waters north of Indonesia in the summer of 2010, in collaboration with Indonesia. The ship will continue to explore the western Pacific in 2011. Video Credit: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.

NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer: Mendocino Ridge 4,600ft Gas Plume Discovery

Scientists funded by NOAA and the National Science Foundation recorded the deepest erupting volcano yet discovered, describing high-definition video of the undersea eruption as spectacular. Eruption of the West Mata volcano, discovered in May 2009, occurred nearly 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, in an area bounded by Fiji, Tonga and Samoa.

We found a type of lava never before seen erupting from an active volcano, and for the first time observed molten lava flowing across the deep-ocean seafloor, said the missions Chief Scientist Joseph Resing, a chemical oceanographer at the University of Washington who collaborates with NOAA through the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean. Though NOAA and partners discovered a much shallower eruption in 2004 in the Mariana Arc, the deeper we get, the closer the eruption is to those that formed most of the oceanic crust. 

This spectacular sequence is a close view of the eruption with violent magma degassing events producing bright flashes of hot magma. Lava is blown up into the water before settling back to the seafloor, and large plugs of lava flow rapidly down the slope. In the foreground is the front of the Jason remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) with sampling hoses. The area in view is about 6-10 feet across in an eruptive area approximately 100 yards that runs along the summit. Video courtesy of National Science Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Northeast Lau Response Cruise (NELRC) 2009: Spectacular West Mata Eruptions

Listen to a NOAA video podcast on the The NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer, "America's Ship for Ocean Exploration," commissioned in Seattle, WA August 13th, 2008 the ship and crew will undergo field tests off the U.S. West Coast to train operators and test concepts of operations and equipment associated with the ship and its sensors and systems. All this leads to the ship's first full field season of operations in 2009, and a new way of exploring the ocean.

GalAPAGoS: Where Ridge Meets Hotspot 2005

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