Ten Hawaiʻi-based scientists, students and educators are currently at sea aboard the exploration vessel E/V Nautilus, embarking on a 20-day mission to chart deep seafloor around the Hawaiian Islands that has never been surveyed before. The voyage, which starts and ends in Honolulu, will send remotely operated vehicles thousands of meters down to examine ridges, seamounts and vast abyssal plains that remain largely unknown even to the scientists studying them.
The expedition is run by the Ocean Exploration Trust, and according to Kauai Now, the 10 Hawaiʻi-based explorers joined the Nautilus crew at sea for a mission that will gather data to characterize deep-ocean habitats, biodiversity, bathymetry and geological formations. As Maui Now reports, the expedition team includes scientists, engineers, Hawaiian cultural experts, students and early-career professionals working together to study previously unseen ridges, seamounts and abyssal plains throughout the archipelago.
Nautilus Live, the project's own mission page, describes the target zones in more technical terms: unexplored ridges and seamounts in the eastern portion of Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary, along with abyssal plain habitats southwest of the Main Hawaiian Islands. The site notes the team will use the ship's ROV, mapping and telepresence systems to survey previously unsurveyed deep seafloor, descending to depths as great as 6,000 meters, or roughly 19,685 feet, according to DeeperBlue.
A Crew Rooted in Local Science and Culture
Among those aboard is Mahealani Akui, a University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo undergraduate working as an ocean science intern. Kauai Now quoted Akui saying she is hoping to bring back a better understanding of the deep ocean from this expedition and hopes the data gathered will support resource management decisions and broader scientific knowledge.
The roster also includes Kelsie Pīkake Kuniyoshi, a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa graduate student and ocean science intern, and Emily Palmer, a Mānoa graduate student and scientist, as detailed by Maui Now. Fanny Girard is serving as a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa co-lead scientist on the voyage, while Meagan Putts works as a DARC Lab navigator. Dani Hinshaw is piloting the ship's ROV, and Andy Collins, a Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary staff member, is serving as a resource monitor, Kauai Now and Maui Now report.
Cultural and community voices round out the team. Gandharva Mahina Hou Ross is an onboard communicator from Molokai High School, Gina Errico is communicating from the Bishop Museum, and Daniel Kinzer, who works with Pacific Blue Studios, is also serving as an onboard communicator. Kinzer, who also sits on the Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council, described voyaging across Hawaiʻi's deep ocean aboard E/V Nautilus as always offering a new perspective, per Kauai Now's reporting.
Why the Seafloor Still Holds Secrets
The scale of what remains unmapped around Hawaiʻi has long frustrated researchers. As of August 2022, less than 30 percent of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument's seafloor had been mapped, according to Hawaiʻi Public Radio, even though Nautilus had by then charted more than 8,000 square miles within the monument and the Ocean Exploration Trust was building additional autonomous vehicles to speed up the work. That same reporting noted an earlier expedition near Nihoa Island used the uncrewed surface vessel DriX to map nearshore waters.
Abyssal plains, the kind of terrain this expedition is targeting southwest of the Main Hawaiian Islands, sit at depths between roughly 9,800 and 19,700 feet and rank among the largest and least understood habitats on Earth, according to NOAA Ocean Exploration. That scale helps explain why a single 20-day mission is framed less as a final answer and more as another data point in a much longer survey effort.
Coral Monitoring and a Scientific Baseline
Beyond mapping, the team plans to deploy a recently developed benthic lander and low-light camera system from the University of Hawaiʻi to support deep-sea coral monitoring, according to the mission's Nautilus Live page. Kauai Now reports that the resulting data is meant to help establish a scientific baseline that future research, resource management and responsible ocean stewardship decisions will depend on. All data collected on Nautilus expeditions is publicly archived with no embargo or access restrictions, the outlet notes, meaning researchers and the public alike will eventually be able to review what the team finds.
This mission is the sixth Ocean Exploration Trust expedition of 2026, the 19th in Hawaiian waters since 2018, and the 182nd overall since E/V Nautilus's inaugural season in 2009, per Kauai Now. The trust had set out this year to fill critical gaps in ocean knowledge across five planned 2026 expeditions, according to a Nautilus Live blog post, with this voyage closing out the season. The expedition is funded by NOAA's Ocean Exploration program through the NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute.
Watching Live and Getting Involved
Community outreach is a stated goal of the mission, and advanced telepresence technology lets viewers watch livestreamed ROV dives and seafloor mapping around the clock, with Gandharva Mahina Hou Ross inviting anyone interested in ocean science to follow along on nautiluslive.org. Classrooms and community groups can take part in free educational question-and-answer sessions, including some conducted in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, and viewers can engage directly with the at-sea team and get real-time updates through the site and social media.
Megan Cook said the at-sea experiences aboard missions like this one are meant to elevate participants as role models for future generations in STEM and ocean fields. Educators and students interested in joining a future voyage have a narrow window to act: paid internship and fellowship opportunities for 2027 E/V Nautilus expeditions are open now, with applications due Oct. 15.
