A remotely-operated-vehicle explores the sea floor in dim light.

Exploration

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a deep sea jellyfish

Deep Sea Overview

Ever want to explore the deep sea? This overview dives into everything to know about this under-explored world.

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Featured Content

a squid in blue water

Quest for the Giant Squid

One of ten robots that examined an area of 800 cubic kilometers in northern Monterey Bay, over the course of 24 days, in 2006.

Teams of Robots Can Help Us Build 3D Maps of the Ocean

A submersible explores the deep reefs off of Curacao in the Caribbean.

Summer in a Sub: DROP Down to Discovery

Dive through the zones of the ocean to the deep ocean bottom where many strange species live, and there are many yet to be discovered. Explore them in the Deep Ocean Exploration section.

What We DON'T Know About the Deep Sea

A variety of plankton images from the Gulf Stream

STREAMCODE – Planktonic Diversity of the Gulf Stream

Are You An Educator?

At Smithsonian Ocean, we have lesson plans, activities, and resources to help you engage your students in the wonders of our oceans.

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Exploration Articles

Scripps Institution of Oceanography's FLoating Instrument Platform, or FLIP, conducts sea trials off San Diego in May 2009.

FLIP: The FLoating Instrument Platform

Many medicines were based on a chemical from the sea sponge Tectitethya crypta.

Five Questions for Shirley Pomponi, Medical Sponge Hunter

A red and white colored bristle worm swims in the water column.

Five Questions with Brigitte Ebbe, Polychaete Pundit

One-meter-tall plastic drifters are released into the Gulf of Mexico in 2012. Over 300 of these drifters were released and their location information was sent to researchers every five minutes through GPS satellite.

CARTHE Drifters: Where does oil go when it is spilled?

This copepod (Gaussia princeps) was collected deeper than 1000 meters in the Sargasso Sea by Census of Marine Zooplankton (CMarZ) researchers in April 2006.

Five Questions with Russ Hopcroft, Zooplankton Whiz

A C-130 Hercules from the Air Force Reserve Command deploys dispersant into the Gulf of Mexico May 5, 2010, as part of the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill response effort.

Building a Better Dispersant

Alexis Temkin stands in marsh grass holding a reptile.

Five Questions With Alexis Temkin, Searching For Links Between Deepwater Horizon & Human Health

Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative researchers collect samples from a Pensacola Beach with oil layers in the sand. They use genomics to track how the communities of microbes change as they digest different components of oil after a spill.

Three Ways You Can Use Genomics to Study Oil Spill Impacts

Cleaning up abandoned fishing nets

Upcycled Ocean Plastic

Two killer whales.

How Drones in the Sky Unlock Secrets of the Sea

A school of mahi mahi.

From Larvae to Adults – Finding Impacts of an Oil Spill on Mahi-Mahi

Sea lions generate thrust, or forward propulsion, by bringing their fore-flippers together in big sweeping motions called “claps.” When a sea lion “claps,” it stretches its flippers out to the sides and sweeps them down. Then it tucks its flippe

How Do Sea Lions Swim?

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