What NOAA Raised From 5,600 Meters Under the Cook Islands

In July and August 2026 the NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer spent 26 days over the Cook Islands, mapping 24,253 square kilometers of its exclusive economic zone and diving between 2,500 and 6,000 meters. The robot came back with seven fossil shark teeth, a plain paved in polymetallic nodules, and on the last dive a 40 centimeter fossil whale beak from 3,600 meters. CHAPTERS 0:00 The Tooth the Ocean Grew a Rock Around 0:35 Two Million Square Kilometers of Ocean 2:19 A Plain Paved With Tennis Balls 4:16 Glass Sponges Standing on Metal 6:15 Seven Teeth and One of Them Is Thirteen Centimeters 7:51 Dive Fourteen, Pepe Seamount 9:46 What the Museum Gets READ THE RESEARCH NOAA Ocean Exploration, 2026 Cook Islands ROV Exploration (EX2605) https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/expedi... A Whale of a Tale https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/expedi... A Mega Find: Shark Teeth from the Deep Waters of the Cook Islands https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/expedi... Marine Critical Minerals in the Cook Islands: A Preliminary Look https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/expedi... Dive 06: B1 Seamount Bottom https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/ex2605... Dive 09: Southern Boundary Abyss https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/ex2605... Dive 12 https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/ex2605... All video and images courtesy of NOAA Ocean Exploration, 2026 Cook Islands ROV Exploration. Public domain. #deepsea #cookislands #noaa