We're some of the first people to explore this area.
The seafloor and the oceans,
really, are where life probably first formed on this planet.
The ocean covers about 70% of our planet
and yet there's still so much that we don't know about it.
The amount of the ocean that has been seen with human eyes?
A fraction of a percentage.
If we don't know what's there, we can’t protect it.
President Trump is considering reducing or eliminating
11 national marine sanctuaries.
Our country is blessed with incredible natural resources,
including abundant offshore oil and natural gas reserves.
Underwater protections could be cut in the Greater Farallones,
Cordell Bank…
Welcome, everyone. This is the kick off to NA085,
the exploration of Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary.
Right now, we're in San Francisco Bay,
and we're on the E/V Nautilus.
We're about to set sail tomorrow morning,
and head out to Cordell Bank.
The current administration is questioning
why we have these sanctuaries.
And so, before we've even had a chance to explore these areas,
there's a threat, now, to actually changing that.
We'll do probably eight or nine dives
throughout the course of the expedition,
and document all these regions for the first time.
It's almost like doing a census of life in the oceans.
The sanctuary is 1,286 square miles.
There's so much out there. At least 90%
of our sanctuary that we've never looked at,
we’ve never been able to see.
When we're in the van, watching the screens,
there's a real thrill of anticipation,
and the thrill of discovery and exploration.
Oh my gosh! Wow!
This is just beautiful.
I was on the edge of my seat,
and getting as close to the screen as I could,
like, I just wanted to jump right in and be there.
Because the oceans are so deep,
with incredible pressure and dangerous conditions,
humans cannot live, or be down at those depths.
Hercules is this incredible robot.
It’s like our avatar.
So our hands become the arms of the vehicle.
Our eyes become the video cameras on the vehicle.
And then we can explore the world's oceans that way.
There really is nobody else in the world
that's doing this to the level that we're doing it.
This set of claws here has coral cutters.
It’s like a scissor action that comes down.
This is the main HD camera here.
This, essentially, is like a vacuum in the ocean.
This little guy here is the tiki.
Before every dive, the intern’s job is to oil this guy.
And the idea is that if it’s oiled,
then it’s going to be a good dive.
If you forget to oil it, the story goes,
something bad might happen.
We have a coral party down here, guys.
If I was a coral, I’d be here.
A lot of people are familiar with tropical coral reefs,
but there’s actually these corals that live
in the cold, dark, deep sea habitat,
and they're quite spectacular organisms.
And we target looking for these, because
they're kind of these biodiversity hotspots
in the ocean, when you can find them.
This is the first dive time
I've seen all the polyps open like this.
Looks like ramen noodles.
A lot of times, the samples that we collect
are studied and analyzed for their DNA.
And there's potential for new medicines to be found.
New antibiotics could be gleaned from animals
that have developed a defense mechanism
to protect themselves in the deep ocean.
We are out on deck, waiting for the bioboxes to be opened,
so we can see what specimens we brought up.
There's one species, that had this corkscrew shape,
that has never been recorded in North America before.
Trying very hard to not pull it.
So it was a new record for all of North America, potentially.
If we are able to make these discoveries,
and bring those back to people to show them
what kind of diversity and life is in the ocean,
then, if somebody wanted to disturb the seafloor
in some way, then we would be able to have the information
to say, “These sensitive habitats are there,
and this is not an appropriate activity.”
So, this is a little hairy recovery.
It’s blowing 25, 30 now.
The wind kicked up really fast this afternoon,
and we were still about 900 meters down.
We’re subject to the mighty Pacific Ocean here,
and it can be forgiving at times,
but other times, it can be placing
extra demands on us, like it is right now.
The weather is still pretty heavy out there.
So we got into port in San Francisco early.
With any scientific expedition like this,
it takes months, if not years,
to really process all the data, and process all the samples.
The preliminary results are that we think there's a couple of
previously unidentified species of coral and sponge.
Who knows? One or two could be new to science.
This mentality, with the current administration, that
we don't need these sorts of things,
I think it's even more important for us to prove, as scientists,
that, yes, we do need these things,
and we need to protect them.
This project definitely exceeded our expectations.
By going down there,
it just really opened up this world for us.
We have a new way to talk about it.
We have a new way to think about it.
And we have new things to share
with people about the sanctuary.
Everybody should care about the ocean.
It provides 50% of the oxygen that we breathe.
It drives our weather. It affects everybody, really.
By studying the deep sea, we learn more about ourselves,
we learn more about our planet,
and that’s really what it’s all about,
is trying to understand how this whole system works.