The Challenger Deep is the deepest known point of the seabed of Earth, located in the western Pacific Ocean at the southern end of the Mariana Trench, in the ocean territory of the Federated States of Micronesia. According to the GEBCO Gazetteer of Undersea Feature Names the depression's depth is 10,920 ± 10 m (35,827 ± 33 ft) at 11°22.4′N142°35.5′E, although its exact geodetic location remains inconclusive and its depth has been measured at 10,902–10,929 m (35,768–35,856 ft) by deep-diving submersibles, remotely operated underwater vehicles, benthic landers, and sonar bathymetry. The differences in depth estimates and their geodetic positions are scientifically explainable by the difficulty of researching such deep locations.
A remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROUV) or remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is a free-swimming submersible craft used to perform underwater observation, inspection and physical tasks such as valve operations, hydraulic functions and other general tasks within the subsea oil and gas industry, military, scientific and other applications. ROVs can also carry tooling packages for undertaking specific tasks such as pull-in and connection of flexible flowlines and umbilicals, and component replacement.
A small waterplane area twin hull, better known by the acronym SWATH, is a catamaran design that minimizes hull cross section area at the sea's surface. Minimizing the ship's volume near the surface area of the sea, where wave energy is located, minimizes a vessel's response to sea state, even in high seas and at high speeds. The bulk of the displacement necessary to keep the ship afloat is located beneath the waves, where it is less affected by wave action. Wave excitation drops exponentially as depth increases, so wave action normally does not affect a submerged submarine at all. Placing the majority of a ship's displacement under the waves is similar in concept to creating a ship that rides atop twin submarines.
The Florida Institute of Oceanography (FIO), located on the campus of the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, is an entity of the State University System of Florida that works collaboratively with 32 institutions and agencies from across the state that support marine research.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) is a private, non-profit oceanographic research center in Moss Landing, California. MBARI was founded in 1987 by David Packard, and is primarily funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Christopher Scholin serves as the institute's president and chief executive officer, managing a work force of approximately 220 scientists, engineers, and operations and administrative staff.
Marine engineering is the engineering of boats, ships, submarines, and any other marine vessel. Here it is also taken to include the engineering of other ocean systems and structures – referred to in certain academic and professional circles as "ocean engineering".
RV Point Lobos was a research vessel operated by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). It was the platform of operations for the ROV Ventana.
R/V Roger Revelle is a Thomas G. Thompson-class oceanographic research ship operated by Scripps Institution of Oceanography under charter agreement with Office of Naval Research as part of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) fleet. The ship is named after Roger Randall Dougan Revelle, who was essential to the incorporation of Scripps into the University of California San Diego.
Jason is a two-body remotely operated vehicle (ROV) designed, built, and operated by the National Deep Submergence Laboratory of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Construction of Jason began in 1982 and was first launched in 1988, redesigned in 2002 as the second iteration of the ROV. The ROV allows scientists and explorers to have access to the seafloor without leaving the deck of a ship.
Subsea technology involves fully submerged ocean equipment, operations, or applications, especially when some distance offshore, in deep ocean waters, or on the seabed. The term subsea is frequently used in connection with oceanography, marine or ocean engineering, ocean exploration, remotely operated vehicle (ROVs) autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), submarine communications or power cables, seafloor mineral mining, oil and gas, and offshore wind power.
Thomas Washington (T-AGOR-10) was a Robert D. Conrad-class oceanographic research ship delivered to the U.S. Navy in 1965. The ship was owned by the Navy but assigned to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California, La Jolla, California and operated as R/VThomas Washington from delivery to inactivation.
ORV Sagar Nidhi is an ice-strengthened multidisciplinary vessel operated by the National Institute of Ocean Technology, India. It was constructed at Fincantieri, Italy. The 104-metre-long vessel has fully automatic diesel-electric propulsion equipped with dynamic positioning system, azimuth thrusters, and a winch to hoist 60 tonnes from a depth of 6,000 metres.
An acoustic release is an oceanographic device for the deployment and subsequent recovery of instrumentation from the sea floor, in which the recovery is triggered remotely by an acoustic command signal.
The Center for Microbial Oceanography (C-MORE) is a research and education organization established in 2006 as a National Science Foundation funded Science and Technology Center.
The GEOMAR - Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR), formerly known as the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences, is a research institute in Kiel, Germany. It was formed in 2004 by merging the Institute for Marine Science with the Research Center for Marine Geosciences (GEOMAR) and is co-funded by both federal and provincial governments. It was a member of the Leibniz Association until 2012 and is coordinator of the FishBase Consortium. Since 2012 it is member of the Helmholtz Association and named GEOMAR - Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel. The institute operates worldwide in all ocean basins, specialising in climate dynamics, marine ecology and biogeochemistry, and ocean floor dynamics and circulation. GEOMAR offers degree courses in affiliation with the University of Kiel, and operates the Kiel Aquarium and the Lithothek, a repository for split sediment core samples.
The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, or JAMSTEC (海洋機構), is a Japanese national research institute for marine-earth science and technology. It was founded as Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (海洋科学技術センター) in October 1971, and became an Independent Administrative Institution administered by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in April 2004.
EVNautilus is a 68-meter (223 ft) research vessel owned by the Ocean Exploration Trust under the direction of Robert Ballard, the researcher known for finding the wreck of the Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck. The vessel's home port is at the AltaSea facility in San Pedro in the Port of Los Angeles, California. Nautilus is equipped with a team of remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), Hercules, Argus, Little Hercules, and Atalanta, a multibeam mapping system, and mapping tools Diana and Echo, allowing it to conduct deep sea exploration of the ocean to a depth of 4,000 meters (13,000 ft).
RV Falkor is an oceanographic research vessel operated by the Schmidt Ocean Institute. Ship time aboard the vessel is made freely available to researchers once they have undergone an application, peer review process, and their proposal has been accepted. One condition for using the Falkor is that research findings and data from all expeditions are made publicly available. Researchers aboard Falkor receive expert shipboard support, use of scientific equipment, as well as robotic and computational resources. RV Falkor is adaptable and can facilitate new technologies and external resources as required for each science expedition. Falkor’s current status and a virtual ship tour are publicly available on the Schmidt Ocean Institute website. The Schmidt Ocean Institute announced the change of ownership of the vessel on 14. March 2022. It was renamed to Gaia Blu and is used by the italian National Research Council. It concluded its first science expedition at the 20. October 2022.
The Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) SuBastian is owned and operated by the Schmidt Ocean Institute and is used for scientific exploration of the deep sea. ROV SuBastian is operated from the Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel RV Falkor and can reach depths up to 4,500m. The tethered robot has an array of scientific capability which includes:
Underwater exploration is the exploration of any underwater environment, either by direct observation by the explorer, or by remote observation and measurement under the direction of the investigators. Systematic, targeted exploration is the most effective method to increase understanding of the ocean and other underwater regions, so they can be effectively managed, conserved, regulated, and their resources discovered, accessed, and used. Less than 10% of the ocean has been mapped in any detail, less has been visually observed, and the total diversity of life and distribution of populations is similarly obscure.
