EM302 Water Column Sonar Data Collected During EX1805

Singlebeam Collection for EX1805: East Florida Mapping (Telepresence) (EK60). From May 22 - June 6, 2018, NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer conducted mapping operations 24 hours per day using the ship's state-of-the-art suite of sonars focused on mapping the seafloor, the water column, and the sub-seafloor. This was the first part of the two-part Windows to the Deep 2018: Exploration of the Southeast U.S. Continental Margin expedition intended to increase our understanding of the deep-sea environment along the southeast United States. This is the first NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer expedition that will contribute to NOAA’s Atlantic Seafloor Partnership for Integrated Research and Exploration (ASPIRE), a major multi-year, multi-national collaborative field program focused on raising collective knowledge and understanding of the North Atlantic Ocean. Mapping operations were focused offshore Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, in the South Atlantic Bight – and more specifically, the Blake Plateau – over some of the least explored areas along the U.S. East Coast. The data collected during the expedition provides baseline information in unknown and poorly known deepwater areas of the southeastern United States and will directly support remotely operated vehicle (ROV) dive planning efforts for the second part of this expedition, as well as the ongoing National Oceanographic Partnership Program’s Deep Sea Exploration to Advance Research on Coral/Canyon/Cold seep Habitats (DEEP SEARCH) project.