Presented at EDUCAUSE Annual Conferences, Advanced Networking, EDUCAUSE2007, and Networking and Emerging Technologies

New technologies and infrastructure that extend bandwidth and power to the seafloor are being developed within the Ocean Observatories Initiative of the National Science Foundation. A major component of this effort involving construction of major cabled subsea networks is focusing on science and education programs that will make use of this unprecedented interactive access to study the northeast Pacific Ocean. The last frontier on Earth—the deep sea—will be accessible to a global community of scientists, educators, decision makers, and learners of all ages. New technologies will enable new approaches to studies of ocean and earth processes that, for example, regulate global climate, absorb greenhouse gases, generate earthquakes and tsunamis, support major fish stocks, harbor life in the extreme environments of sea floor volcanoes, and form vast mineral resources.