Saildrone Completes Months-Long Survey of Alaskan Islands and Offshore California

In January 2021 we wrote about Alameda company Saildrone as it launched a new vessel, the Saildrone Surveyor — a 72-ft uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) equipped for high-resolution mapping of the ocean seafloor. The Surveyor has since been making its way across oceans in its mission to explore and map oceans and seabeds, and has completed its first Pacific crossing. According to a recent press release, the vehicle has now completed a months-long survey around Alaska’s Aleutian Islands and off the coast of California, covering 45,000 square kilometers of previously unknown ocean floor.

The United States Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), stretching from the coast to 200 nautical miles from shore, is one of the largest in the world, but it is largely still unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored. In terms of area, Alaska is by far the least-mapped region of the US EEZ.

Severe weather is the norm in the Aleutian region, but the Surveyor continued to collect high-quality data even in 35-knot winds and wave swells over five meters (16 feet) — conditions that would have proved too challenging for most crewed survey vessels. The video below, released by Saildrone, shows the Surveyor at work.

“Every American, in one way or another, depends on the ocean — from protein from fish to feed animals or humans, to deep-sea cables that make the internet possible. The only way the US can maximize our ocean resources is to understand what’s there. This mission is the first step to mapping the seafloor of key regions in Aleutian waters in high resolution. The beauty of the Surveyor is getting that initial exploration step done faster, cheaper, and without as much staff,” said Dr. Aurora Elmore, Cooperative Institute Manager at NOAA Ocean Exploration.

During the second half of the mission off the coast of California, the Surveyor discovered a previously unknown seamount standing approximately 1,000 meters (3,200 feet) high. “Identifying such seamounts improves our understanding of the physical processes of the ocean and identifies areas needing further exploration as unique habitats.”

Read the full article here.