Around Africa 2025

The Around Africa Expedition 2025, led by OceanX in partnership with OceanQuest, marked a transformative chapter in deep-sea exploration and research along Africa’s vast and understudied coastline. This pioneering mission revealed new insights into the continent’s hidden marine landscapes, pushing scientific boundaries and establishing vital baselines for biodiversity, geology, and climate studies in some of the least-explored waters on Earth. 

Over the course of the expedition, the team mapped 120,054 square kilometers of seafloor across key regions including the Mozambique Channel, Agulhas Plateau, Nola Seamounts off Cabo Verde, and the deep flanks of Walters Shoal, as well as a newly discovered seamount along the southern Madagascar Ridge. These efforts produced the first high-resolution bathymetric and visual records of these sites, unveiling previously unknown geological formations, canyon systems, and vibrant benthic ecosystems. 

Using advanced ocean technologies — ROVs, submersibles, multibeam sonar, and environmental DNA (eDNA) sequencing — scientists completed 23 ROV dives and 16 submersible dives, capturing thousands of high-definition images and specimens for biodiversity and geological analysis. The team also collected over 470 eDNA samples, offering a molecular snapshot of species diversity from the surface to the deep sea. Continuous water-column and aerosol sampling provided valuable data on ocean-atmosphere interactions and regional climate processes. 

The discoveries illuminated Africa’s seamount ecosystems as biodiversity hotspots — towering volcanic mountains that drive nutrient upwelling and support thriving coral gardens, sponge fields, and pelagic life. These rugged peaks not only host complex marine communities but also serve as natural archives of the region’s tectonic and climatic history. At Walters Shoal, scientists documented fragile coral and sponge habitats showing slow recovery from trawling damage sustained in the 1980s, highlighting both the resilience and vulnerability of deep-sea environments. 

Beyond expanding scientific frontiers, the expedition’s findings have long-standing conservation value. Detailed bathymetric maps and biological datasets can inform future Marine Protected Area (MPA) designations, fisheries management, and climate resilience planning. By combining exploration with rigorous data collection, this mission provides one of the most comprehensive scientific assessments ever conducted of Africa’s deep-sea ecosystems, laying a foundation for continued research and stewardship across the continent’s blue frontier.

As an endorsed action of the United Nations Ocean Decade framework (2021-2030), the OceanX and OceanQuest Around Africa Expedition contributes to capacity building and scientific understanding of the ocean.  

A cornerstone of the Around Africa Expedition is its commitment to fostering the next generation of ocean professionals. Through collaboration with the Partnership for Observation of the Global Ocean (POGO) and other organizations, the expedition provided hands-on training for over 50 early career professionals (ages 25 and up) and Young Explorers (ages 18 to 24) through immersive, at-sea educational programs with practical experience in oceanography, eDNA analysis, and science communication. OceanXplorer portside tours for local students and educators provided interactive programming for young people, sparking enthusiasm and opening their eyes to ocean-positive actions and careers.  

In addition to the trainings for young marine advocates, the Around Africa Expedition collaborated with 69 scientists from 31 countries and 29 institutions who successfully conducted deep-sea dives, geological and biodiversity sampling, and oceanographic research in these key regions around the African coastline. 

Through the scientific exploration of the deep-sea ecosystems of Africa and the hands-on skill building educational programs, this mission simultaneously inspired both current and future marine scientists and helped to safeguard the future of the ecosystems they will inherit. 

Aligned both in scientific and educational aspects, this mission addresses multiple Ocean Decade Challenges: protecting and restoring ecosystems and biodiversity, providing skills, knowledge, technology and participation for all, and restoring humanity’s relationship with the ocean. 

Specifically, this mission's use of high resolution seabed mapping, ROV dives, eDNA sampling, visual surveys, acoustic bathymetry, and the cutting-edge technology of the Grimm Aerosol Sampling System allowed for both large-scale and detailed-oriented data that begins to illustrate the need to protect these previously unexplored seamount ecosystems that provide homes and food sources to marine animals from sea stars and corals to pelagic fish and sharks. The biodiversity and physical ocean current data collected across these six regions provide insight into the linkages between ocean health and human health as seamounts relate to fisheries sustainability and seismic activity.  

The data — acoustic seafloor and water column mapping — collected at locations where no known publicly available data previously existed, contributes to global mapping initiatives such as Seabed2030, which provides seafloor syntheses, weather forecasting, and modeling, and the World Ocean Database, the largest publicly available ocean profile database. Our data and the larger databases it contributes to can be used to support future implementation of MPA and fishing regulations to ensure the sustained function and health of these critical seamount systems. 

Concluding with a call for increased protective measures, the expedition also marked a series of significant diplomatic milestones to make those changes possible. With visits from South Africa's Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, Dion George, the Minister of Tourism, Patricia De Lille, Cabo Verde’s Minister of the Sea, Jorge Santos, and the President of the Republic of Cabo Verde, José Maria Neves, the Around Africa Expedition succeeded in both scientific research and establishing the collaborations to make an impact. As Patron of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, President Neves reaffirmed Cabo Verde’s strong commitment and leadership in advancing ocean knowledge, marine conservation, and sustainable blue development. 

The expedition has concluded but the analysis of the collected data continues to inform environmental and ocean management policy, support fisheries regulation and marine conservation, as well as strengthen Africa’s leadership in ocean science and sustainable development.