Founding partners

18 July - 6 August 2024

Jarvis Island

MISSION SUMMARY

Ongoing repair to a ship system has changed plans for the expedition, postponing the remotely operated vehicle exploration portion of this voyage to Jarvis Island within the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. The expedition will now evolve into a seafloor mapping transit leg to American Samoa where the Ocean Exploration Trust team will resume exploring other richly biodiverse areas – check out their 2024 expedition plan here.
 
Thank you so much to our partners OET for all of their hard work for this expedition!

The Ocean Census is joining the Ocean Exploration Trust (OET) on their Ancient Seamounts of Jarvis Island expedition. This Ocean Census participant expedition will see an Ocean Census taxonomy expert, working alongside OET, explore the biodiversity of deep-sea habitats near Jarvis Island – an uninhabited coral island in the Central Pacific. This expedition is funded by NOAA Ocean Exploration via the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute. An Ocean Census scientist will join Ocean Exploration Trust’s E/V Nautilus on this groundbreaking expedition from July 18 – August 6, 2024.

US waters around Jarvis Island host some of Earth’s least impacted marine ecosystems, yet the region remains underexplored. This expedition aims to address scientific and management priorities, including understanding the deep-water resources of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM), species distribution patterns, and the geological context of this complex tectonic and volcanic region. The 20-day expedition will use Nautilus‘ ROV: Hercules, mapping, and telepresence systems to survey unexplored deep-sea habitats in the US Exclusive Economic Zone around Jarvis Island.

Jarvis Island, located between Hawaiʻi and the Cook Islands, is part of the Line Islands Ridge, stretching over 4,000 kilometers from the Mid-Pacific Mountains to the Tuamotu Islands.

E/V Nautilus, a 224-foot exploration vessel, is equipped with Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), acoustic mapping systems, and other advanced technologies. Scientists and the public can participate remotely via live feeds and ship-to-shore interactions connecting the ship with science centers and classrooms. Educators and students also sail on Nautilus expeditions, gaining hands-on experience and disseminating findings globally.

The Ocean Census and Ocean Exploration Trust have partnered since 2023 to accelerate ocean life discovery, catalyse protection, and build human capacity in marine science.

Join the expedition at NautilusLive.org for live-streaming footage from the seafloor and to interact with the expedition team. We will collaborate with our participant scientist and Ocean Exploration Trust teams to share stories, announcements, and discoveries.

Follow @Ocean Census and @Ocean Exploration Trust on social media for updates on this fascinating expedition.

Header Image Credit: Beth Watson / Ocean Image Bank

Feature Image Credit: Ocean Exploration Trust

About Cristiana - our Ocean Census Participant Scientist

Ocean Census participant scientist Cristiana Castello-Branco, a sponge expert, joins the expedition. Cristiana is interested in the biodiversity of these deep-sea creatures and in answering questions regarding their evolutionary relationships and distribution. In another words, her work is to classify, describe, and try to understand deep-sea sponges species relationships and geographical distribution.

 

Currently, she is a postdoctoral researcher at the Museu Nacional (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro – Brazil) and a research associate at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NMNH – USA), working on systematics, diversity and distribution of deep-sea sponges.

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Ocean Census supports a range of expeditions and opportunities for scientists to get onboard, helping to add capacity to species discovery worldwide.

Participant Expeditions give specialists from our Science Network and media experts the opportunity to join expeditions led by our Partners, gain at-sea skills, and exchange knowledge with other professionals.

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