NOAA Sea to Sky: Education resource database

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are unoccupied, untethered, battery-powered vehicles used to collect data for underwater research.

Chemosynthesis is the synthesis of organic compounds by bacteria or other living organisms using energy derived from reactions involving inorganic chemicals, typically in the absence of sunlight. Learn more about the fascinating communities that this unique form of primary productivity fuels in this fact sheet.

The Deep Discoverer remotely operated vehicle (ROV) gives scientists unprecedented access to the deep ocean – from delivering stunning high-definition video and gathering physical data about surrounding waters, to allowing the collection of biological and geological samples. This in turn helps scientists to better understand an ecosystem in its entirety, meaning we can make better decisions about an area's management as well as its protection.

Near spreading centers or subduction zones cold seawater percolates down through fissures in the ocean crust, is heated by hot magma, and reemerges, forming hydrothermal vents. At some vents known as black smokers, rocky chimneys can rise more than 50 meters from the sea floor. In this investigation, students explore how a solid forms from the mixing of two liquids and use the science ideas they develop to help explain how chimneys form at hydrothermal vents.

Hydrothermal vents are the result of sea water percolating down through fissures in the ocean crust near spreading centers or subduction zones. Learn more about vent basics in this fact sheet.

Despite existing in the depths of the ocean, where sunlight cannot reach, hydrothermal vents are oases of life in the deep. In this investigation, students explore the phenomenon: How can ecosystems survive without sunlight? and develop their understanding of chemosynthetic communities through student-sensemaking.

These education theme pages are designed to provide the best of what the OceanExplorer.NOAA.gov website has to offer on a number of popular ocean science topics. Each theme page provides links to background information, lessons, multimedia interactive activities, career profiles, and information on associated past expeditions.

Today’s technologies allow us to explore the ocean in increasingly systematic, scientific, and noninvasive ways. With continuing scientific and technological advances, our ability to observe the ocean environment and its resident creatures is beginning to catch up with our imaginations, expanding our understanding and appreciation of this still largely unexplored realm. This webpage highlights some of the technologies that make exploration possible today and the scientific achievements that result from this exploration.

Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) are tethered to and operated from a ship, allowing humans to explore the ocean without actually being in the vehicle.

Students analyze and interpret data to explain how multibeam sonar is used to identify patterns of ocean floor structures, construct three-dimensional maps, and understand how multibeam sonar technology extends the measurement and exploration capacity of modern ocean exploration.