Between July and October 2025, NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer sent its remotely operated vehicles Deep Discoverer and Seirios down to the seamounts and volcanic domes of Papahānaumokuākea, the protected ocean area northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands. On an unnamed seamount the cameras found a sea slug that may be new to science, and at the far western edge of the area the team collected a glass sponge that may also be a new species. The same year the ship mapped about 211,000 square kilometers of seafloor.