Okeanos Explorer entering Indonesia

From Antara News (Indonesian English webnewspaper): Okeanos Explorer entering Indonesia
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The American research ship of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Okeanos Explorer, will be entering Indonesian waters in North Jakarta on Friday (Jule 18).

(Note the article appears to have been translated by computer, rather than by someone who is actually a person who understans English and Indonesian!)

"The ship along with the Indonesian vessel from the Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT) Baruna Jaya IV will be collaboratively exploring the Sangihe-Talaud deep sea, North Sulawesi," Chairman of the Corporate Branding and Marine Communication, Conservation International (CI) of Indonesia Elshinta Suyoso-Marsden said in Jakarta on Thursday.

This activity, he said, is part of the RI-US long-term partnership cooperation for promoting Marine, Technology and Education Science important for the economy and environment for life in this planet.

This joint exploitation represents various initiatives which is for the very first time carried out by the two countries which have similar characteristics namely a very vast ocean in the world, Elshinta said.

In the Explorer Okeanos International Expedition will for the very first time be carried out together with a deep sea area exploration the secrecy had never been exposed in the last two months.

Okeanos will also send data obtained from real time deep sea exploration in the form of motion pictures and other data straight to the experts, researchers and scientists watching from the two Expedition Command Centers (ECC) in Jakarta and Seattle, in the US.

The ECC will be inaugurated by head the Marine and Fishery Research Center (BRKP), of the Marine and Fisheries Affairs, in the presence of the US Ambassador to Indonesia and the research partners of other scientific research Institutions.

It is hoped this explorations may produce new discoveries, seabed mapping, understanding under sea mountain locations, from the geological, biological and species sides.

The scientists who will take part in the scientific expedition, included Sugiharto Wirasantosa, Budi Sulistyo from BRKP, KKP; Yusuf Surachman Djajadihardja and Ridwan Djamaluddin from BPPT; Haryadi Permana from the Geo-technological Research Center, LIPI; Noorsalam Nganro, Hasanuddin Abidin, and Sofyan Hadi of the Bandung Institute of Technology; and Hamdan Abidin of the Geological Survey Center of the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.

The seven US scientists included Stephen Randolph Hammond as Chief Scientist from NOAA; Russell Eugene Brainard, Adjunct Faculty from Coral reef Ecosystem Division, NOAA; Patricia Barb Fryer, Planetary Scientist of the University of Hawaii, Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology; and James Francis Holden from the Dept. of Microbiology, University of Massachussets.

Timothy Mitchell Shank of the Biology Dept., Woods Hole Oceanographyc Institution; Verena Julia Tunniciffe, Professor dari Dept. of Biology, School of Earth & Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Canada; and Laurence Alan Mayer, Professor from Hydrographic Center, University of New Hampshire.