Overview:
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has launched a large-scale hydrographic survey to map and characterize more than 30,000 square nautical miles of deep federal waters off American Samoa, as part of a broader U.S. effort to assess offshore critical mineral resources. The project will generate publicly accessible data to support research, environmental management and future decision-making related to deep-sea minerals.
PAGO PAGO, 23 JANUARY 2026 (NOAA) — NOAA’s National Ocean Service announced today a new hydrographic survey project to map and characterise more than 30,000 square nautical miles of federal waters off American Samoa. This project is part of the Department of Commerce’s implementation of the U.S Offshore Critical Minerals Mapping Plan as defined by President Trump’s Executive Order 14285: Unleashing America’s Offshore Critical Minerals and Resources.
“NOAA is proud to play a leading role in the President’s plan unlocking access to critical minerals for domestic supply chains,” said Neil Jacobs, Ph.D., NOAA administrator. “This project highlights NOAA’s strong impact on economic resilience as we invest in research that supports sustainable deep sea mining practices and allows partners to better understand their marine environments.”
NOAA contractor NV5offsite link, a current hydrographic survey services vendor, will begin survey work in February 2026. NOAA will use approximately $20M of fiscal year 2025 funding to produce publicly accessible maps, images and samples of the marine environment off the coast of American Samoa. These products will serve to inform NOAA, other federal agencies and interested parties of the critical mineral deposits and relative prospectivity of the surveyed area. This effort will generate high-quality and transparent deep-ocean data that will help to increase the baseline understanding of the federal waters off American Samoa’s deep-ocean environment, and will stimulate further exploration, research and management projects, including activities related to deep sea minerals…. PACNEWS