New AUV Helps Document Critical Minerals
An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) has imaged a previously unexplored portion of the seafloor in ultra-deep waters near the Mariana Trench.
Built by New England-based startup Orpheus Ocean, the small-footprint AUV is advancing understanding of some of the planet’s least explored regions at water depths up to 11,000 meters (6.8 miles).
Operationalizing the technology for the first time was part of a mission led by the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute (OECI), based at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography, with support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
As part of a larger expedition to expand knowledge of the seafloor, the OECI partnered with Orpheus Ocean to field-test their new AUV east of the Mariana Trench. The AUV successfully completed several dives to depths exceeding 5,600 meters (3.5 miles), including imaging polymetallic nodules on the seafloor.
Orpheus technology provided the first direct observations of these sites, which were selected by USGS experts who predicted that nodules would likely be found in the area.
“The abyssal plain visited on this mission is one of the least-known areas on Earth. The data and images compiled help us to refine our seafloor prospectivity maps. Mission by mission, we are filling in the details of the map and building knowledge of where seafloor minerals may be found and their geologic and oceanographic setting,” said Amy Gartman, lead of the USGS Global Seabed Mineral Resources Project.
A predecessor to Orpheus Ocean’s AUV was originally developed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and its evolution from prototype to operational vehicle has been supported over several years by NOAA Ocean Exploration and OECI.
Orpheus Ocean, a startup company founded in 2024, aims to expand access to these unique, small-footprint robots to supercharge our ability to collect meaningful data that can ensure sound policy decisions about these unique environments.