August 2, 2013

Today, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, acting under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and acting NOAA administrator, issued the following statement following the confirmation of Dr. Mark Schaefer as NOAA’s assistant secretary for conservation and management. Due to an administrative oversight, Dr. Schaefer was actually confirmed under this position’s former title, Assistant Secretary of Oceans and Atmosphere.

Ocean explorers in July on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer discovered a wide diversity of seafloor features and communities of life in the largely unexplored deep-sea canyons off the northeast U.S. coast. Now through August 16, as the expedition continues, the public can join the mission as “citizen scientists,” at oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos, to see live seafloor video and listen as scientists discuss their observations in real time. During the expedition’s July leg, there were nearly 60,000 visits to the live streaming video.