Ocean Discovery League Aims to Double Deep Seafloor Observations
Ocean Discovery League (ODL) has launched the Global Deep Sea Exploration Goals, an international effort to visually explore 10,000 strategically selected locations across the deep seafloor.
When completed, this initiative will nearly double the number of unique seafloor locations ever visually observed and produce the first globally representative visual dataset of the deep ocean floor.
The methodology behind this strategy was published in a Science Advances article titled “The Global Deep Sea Exploration Goals: A Representative Approach to Visually Observing the Deep Seafloor.” The paper describes how the target locations were selected using existing global datasets of key seafloor characteristics and outlines the impact that observing these locations could have on achieving a representative picture of deep seafloor environmental diversity.
The initiative builds directly on ODL’s landmark 2025 study, "How Little We've Seen: A Visual Coverage Estimate of the Deep Seafloor," which revealed that only 0.001% of the deep seafloor has been visually observed despite covering more than half of the planet’s surface.
“More than 99.999% of the deep seafloor has never been seen,” said Dr. Katy Croff Bell, President of Ocean Discovery League, National Geographic Explorer, and senior author of the study. “The Global Deep Sea Exploration Goals provide the first practical roadmap to change that. By coordinating exploration efforts across the global community and focusing on locations that represent the true diversity of the seafloor, we can dramatically accelerate discovery while building a more inclusive and collaborative future for deep-sea science.”
To support the initiative, ODL has launched an open-access interactive platform that allows researchers, expedition planners, and the public to explore the 10,000 targets and track progress as observations are completed.
“By correcting for long-standing observational biases, such as disproportionate exploration near wealthy coastal nations or specific geological features, the approach provides a roadmap for a more representative, geographically balanced observation of the deep seafloor,” said lead author Dr. Kristen Johannes.
A growing international coalition of organizations has already committed to supporting the Global Deep Sea Exploration Goals, including the National Geographic Society, Seabed 2030, OceanX, Schmidt Ocean Institute, Challenger 150, SpeSeas, LAMAVE, Marmoris, Oceanswell, and the Deep Ocean Observing Strategy (DOOS). These collaborators represent a broad alliance of scientific institutions, expedition programs, and global ocean initiatives working to coordinate exploration, mapping, biodiversity discovery, and ocean stewardship.
The initiative is designed to integrate with ongoing global ocean science programs, including seafloor mapping and biodiversity discovery, enabling expeditions worldwide to contribute observations alongside their existing research goals. Because many observations can be incorporated into ongoing cruises or conducted with relatively low-cost imaging systems, the Global Deep Sea Exploration Goals can be achieved through a distributed network of expeditions over the next one to two decades.
ODL invites research institutions, exploration programs, governments, philanthropic and private-sector collaborators to participate by incorporating these targets into upcoming expeditions, contributing imagery and data, and supporting the expansion of deep-sea exploration capacity worldwide.
The development of the Global Deep Sea Exploration Goals was supported by the National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet Expeditions program, Dalio Philanthropies, Lyda Hill Philanthropies, and the Cabot Family Charitable Trust and produced in collaboration with the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.