URL: http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/07philippines/welcome.html

Title: Exploring the Inner Space of the Celebes Sea 2007 Date: September 27 – October 16, 2007

Mission Summary:

The 2007 mission to explore the Inner Space of the Celebes Sea became an exclusive opportunity to connect explorers and scientists from America and several Philippines universities and research agencies south of the Philippines Islands in search of fishes, jellyfish, squids, and shrimp that live in the dark deep waters. The Celebes Sea was picked for the mission because this sea is located just north of equator and is called the center of the most biologically diverse area of the world’s ocean. It is 5,000 meters deep but is surrounded by much shallower ocean waters, and as a result these waters became the home for species living in isolation from other surrounding waters, and waiting to be discovered using new exploration tools.

A ship Hydrographer Presbitero designed only for 40 people, gathered sixty-one, including 28 scientists and researchers. They worked together for almost two weeks to collect samples, videos, images, and data to increase our understanding of the biological composition and the nature of the deep mid-water environment of the Celebes Sea. Scientists wanted to compare the samples and all information with what is known about other deep-sea regions around the world. The expedition has begun in the Port of Manila and then continued south through the Sulu Sea to the study site, southeast of the Sulu Archipelago, where the bottom falls off rapidly to the sea floor thousands of meters below. To collect and observe rare and unknown species, the scientists and marine biologists used different technologies like trawling, scuba diving, a rope camera and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) The Global Explorer, equipped with a high definition (HD) color video camera, a digital still camera, a 12-chambered suction sampler, and static canister samplers.

According to Chief Scientist Larry Madin, the study area of the expedition was relatively small but it was very important to find out more about the deep sea. Just a short time before the expedition began two "living fossils", a coelacanth fish and a primitive shrimp, were found in the Celebes Sea, so the researchers wanted to collect as many species as possible. At the beginning of the expedition it looked like scientists knew all the species they found but they still wanted to examine them closely to check if they were really the same of different to be considered a different species but the true journey began when they got deeper in the water. They made nine dives altogether, including one at night and found some familiar species and some new. In spite of the fact that the expedition faced some unexpected difficulties, like a loss of two cameras with films, almost a loss of ROV and protection from terror attacks they still were able to collect many samples and work in the deep sea. The mission members shared their findings and discoveries with us by posting amazing images, slideshows and videos on the web. One of the species looked like a worm, others were the black ctenophore, medusas, siphonophores, swimming sea cucumbers, isopod crustaceans, looking like huge spiders, phaeodarian radiolarian, a spherical colony of single-celled organisms, black midwater fish, bright red shrimp, and purple medusae and other assorted planktonic and slow swimming organisms.