The Ocean Exploration Trust 2025 Field Season

Ocean Exploration Trust's 2025 field season took E/V Nautilus across the Pacific, with seven multi-disciplinary expeditions exploring some of the region’s most underexplored waters. Expeditions dove into the highly active submarine volcanoes of the Mariana Islands, traced the maritime heritage of the Battles of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, surveyed seamounts in the Marshall Islands, investigated the seafloor around Howland and Baker Islands, and revealed the abyssal habitats of the Cook Islands.  

The deep sea remains the largest and least understood environment on Earth, and there is no more important time to understand it better. Ocean Exploration Trust is committed to exactly that, sharing every discovery openly and transparently with the scientists, communities, and curious minds who make this work meaningful. The full story of what that commitment looked like in 2025 — the expeditions, the discoveries, the partnerships, and the people behind it all — is told in the pages that follow. We hope you enjoy the journey as much as we did.