Today (March 26) is the final dive of the Beyond the Blue: 2025 ROV and Mapping Shakedown expedition on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer. Today's dive will focus on engineering objectives and take place at a depth of approximately 1,100 meters (3,610 feet) off the western coast of Oʻahu. We're on the seafloor (after encountering the slowly swimming sea cucumber in the video during our descent). Join the dive live: https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/livestreams/welcome.html | NOAA Ocean Exploration

Today's Hawaiian #wordoftheday: Mauna kai (seamount) "Mauna kai discovery 260 miles ʻākau (north) of Lalo." To catch up on words you've missed, visit: https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/okeanos-beyond-the-blue/ex2403/features/hawaiian-words/hawaiian-words.html (Developed for the Beyond the Blue: Papahānaumokuākea Mapping expeditions on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer in partnership with NOAA Ocean Exploration, the NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, Papahānaumokuākea Marine N

During the recent #Okeanos Beyond the Blue: Papahānaumokuākea ROV and Mapping expedition, we explored 12 seamounts, many of which had never been explored before. Seamounts are important habitats in the deep ocean. Rising off the ocean floor, seamounts interact with water flowing around them. In addition to carrying sediment away and exposing hard surfaces on which organisms can attach and grow, the currents around seamounts carry food to sessile organisms and can produce localized upwelling, del