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Scientists arrive in Cape Town after deep-sea discoveries on ‘Around Africa Expedition’

Researchers and scientists from various countries, including six African countries, aboard the OceanXplora during their Around Africa expedition. (Photo: OceanX).

By Kristin Engel

27 Feb 2025

The OceanXplorer, docked in Cape Town, has mapped seafloor landscapes never before seen, conducted groundbreaking biodiversity surveys and provided a platform for African scientists to engage in deep-sea research first-hand.

Docked at Cape Town harbour is a former oil and petroleum survey ship turned advanced science and media ship, the OceanXplorer, which unveiled a series of remarkable discoveries made during its first Around Africa expedition.

OceanXplorer houses multiple deep-sea research vehicles including two Triton submersibles, and a USV (unmanned surface vehicle). This is a submersible underwater during their Around Africa Expedition. (Photo- OceanX)

The expedition is a pioneering mission led by Ocean X, OceanQuest and scientists from African countries, a large number of them young and early-career scientists, to explore and map uncharted ecosystems never before seen in the deep sea.

Since they departed from Comoros, the team has dived deep underwater, exploring various seamounts in Walter’s Shoal and Agulhas Plateau before arriving in Cape Town in the past week. Next, they will head to Walvis Bay.

sa researchers South African researchers and scientists aboard the OceanXplorer during their Around Africa expedition. (Photo: OceanX)

The team has mapped seafloor landscapes never before seen, conducted groundbreaking biodiversity surveys and provided a platform for African scientists to engage in deep-sea research first-hand.

This is done using some seriously high-grade tech, including multiple deep-sea research vehicles, including two Triton submersibles, a USV (unmanned surface vehicle), and Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) that can go to 6,000m underwater and are capable of exploring nearly the entirety of the ocean.

OceanXplorer houses multiple deep-sea research vehicles including two Triton submersibles, and a USV (unmanned surface vehicle). (Photo: OceanX)

They also use AI technology for real-time species identification.

While in Cape Town, the team is involved in shoreside events, but the ocean research is not taking a break as they launch NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) buoys, measuring air pressure over the ocean and sea surface temperature. This data will be sent to satellites to update researchers on the weather in real time.

South Africa scientists onboard

Daily Maverick toured the ship on Wednesday and interviewed some of the lead researchers and scientists about the work they were doing.

Sinothando Shibe is a marine biologist at the South African National Parks from Durban, supporting the South Africa-France Partnership for Biodiversity and Marine Conservation, and joined as a scientist on the Around Africa Expedition 2025.

Sinothando Shibe, a marine biologist from South Africa, aboard the OceanXplorer during the Around Africa expedition. (Photo: OceanX)

In an interview with Daily Maverick, she said: “These types of expeditions are so important for discovery because we cannot protect what we don’t know. So we have to get in there, and we have to see what’s there for us to be able to make the next steps.”

Shibe said Walter’s Shoal, a group of submerged mountains off the coast of Madagascar, had been the most fascinating spot on the expedition so far.

“It looked very different at each depth band.”

Mission Control of the OceanXplorer during the Around Africa expedition. (Photo: OceanX)

She explained they would put the ROV or the subs down, for example, at 500m, and what you would see at 500m was very different to what you’d see at 300m, and that was very different to what you’d see at 150m.

“That’s because each species or each group of animals adapt differently to different depths and the changing temperatures and the light penetration, so it was very interesting, especially when I was in the sub, to see that in that perspective and not from an ROV screen.

“Being able to actually look around, you can’t do that watching a screen, but in a sub, you have that kind of perspective where you can look around, where you can look up at the seamounts, where you can look at the little crevices on the seamounts, and the overhangs,” Shibe said.

At Walter’s Shoal, they found carbonate pebbles, deep-sea corals and species such as the Brisingid sea stars, a chimaera, a dumbo octopus, and a moray eel nestled within the rocks. The team said that viewing the Brisingid sea stars was a highlight, as they are characteristic of deep-sea ecosystems and serve as important indicators of ocean health.

Deep-sea discoveries

Lara Atkinson, the Lead Scientist for the OceanX and OceanQuest ‘Around Africa Expedition 2025’, is a South African Offshore Marine Scientist. Here Atkinson is working with fellow researchers and scientists. (Photo: OceanX)

The expedition is led by scientist Lara Atkinson, a South African offshore marine scientist with more than a decade of experience in the industry. In 2012 and 2014, she was nominated as a National Representative for the South African Network for Coastal and Oceanic Research.

Her research focuses on establishing monitoring tools and protocols for the offshore benthic environment. In an interview with Daily Maverick, Atkinson dived at the Walter’s Shoal and the Afrikaner Seamounts that sit on the Agulhas Plateau.

The area they were working in at Walter’s Shoal is firmly within the extended continental shelf claim of Madagascar. It sits on the Madagascan Ridge, and Atkinson said it was a unique feature because it comes up so shallow.

“In the middle of this great big blue ocean, Walter’s Shoal is one of the very few seamounts that comes up to within [about] 18-15m of the sea, from the surface. It’s really close. It’s almost an island.

OceanXplorer houses multiple deep-sea research vehicles including two Triton submersibles, and a USV (unmanned surface vehicle). (Photo: OceanX)

There have been many research expeditions to Walter’s Shoal in the past. But Aktinkson said the new piece of information that had been added through this expedition so far, specifically on Walter’s Shoal, is that they managed to record a very high-resolution map.

Atkinson described it thus: “Descending 500m into the deep and seeing the seafloor unfold before my eyes was surreal – like exploring an underwater fynbos landscape of the Western Cape. Watching a large octopus ‘play catch’ with the submersible’s lasers was a fascinating display of intelligence.”

What the team was doing specifically was a lot of water filtering for nutrients, phytoplankton, microbes and environmental DNA. That involved taking a CTD (conductivity, temperature, and depth measurement), putting it down, and sampling the water up at different depths.

Researchers and scientists from various countries, including six African countries, aboard the OceanXplorer during their Around Africa expedition. (Photo: OceanX)

And then when that water gets on board, the team filters that water through very, very fine pores, and then they can extract from those filter papers all this information about the water column.

“That’s really the driving force behind maintaining the ecosystem: the little, little tiny guys sitting at the bottom. We also wanted to capture the larger fauna, the invertebrate fauna that colonise and live on the flanks of the seamount,” Atkinson said.

A seamount is generally rocky and hard, and the species that live there are generally known as vulnerable marine indicator species. They indicate a vulnerable ecosystem type.

They didn’t manage to get to the top of Walter’s Shoal, but from 500m down, they got a high-resolution map that will be made open access to the world for future research.

Future of deep-sea protection

OceanX and OceanQuest’s route for its Around Africa Expedition, the first exploration of previously known but unexplored seamounts. (Photo-OceanX)

Atkinson said that Walter’s Shoal had been fished in the past. From the 1970s to the early 2000s, Walter Shoal was a hotspot for international fisheries’ fleets.

But in 2018, the regional fisheries management organisation, South Indian Ocean Deep Sea Fisheries Association, put in place a benefit protection zone.

Atkinson said this was more voluntary in the high seas, with no real law enforcement, but it generally would apply to and have had agreement from all groups fishing in the area.

“But we do know there is still a very tiny amount of fishing that is happening at Walter Shoal. And even one little drag of a net or a long line or any kind of lobster pot can do damage to long-lived slow-growing species,” Atkinson said.

Atkinson said that proposing any kind of a protection zone out there had to be driven by the neighbouring countries.

“Because if it is not driven by the local countries, it’s not gonna have buy-in. And I do think that that is maybe what happened from the 2018 attempt. But now we have got eyes on the seabed from the neighbouring countries, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa. Scientists have seen that area, and now it is gonna be up to us to kind of drive it forward into the future,” Atkinson said.

Dr Vincent Pieribone, co-CEO and chief science officer of OceanX, told Daily Maverick “Our goals are to first to explore, second to understand, and third to protect.”

He said the aim was to help these researchers study their environments and help bring their findings and insights back to their countries and their policymakers for the importance of the protection of the ocean – “the shallows, the intermediate and even the deep”.

Pieribone said that the open ocean was the only part of the earth that was largely ungoverned.

“It is truly what we would call the Wild West.”

researchers aboard Researchers and scientists from various countries, including six African countries, aboard the OceanXplorer during their Around Africa expedition. (Photo: OceanX).

“Ships burn the most polluting fuel once they pass outside of the EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) of countries. They have separate tanks. Once they leave the economic zones of countries, they often switch to different fuel sources… We feel strongly that what’s in the ocean and what’s happening in the ocean is important for everybody to pay attention,” Pieribone said.

The deep sea has been out of sight and out of mind; you don’t vacation in the deep ocean. Pieribone said you may come to South Africa to swim around with the sharks and see the penguins and the seals, but you don’t get out to the deep ocean.

Most people never do. So this vessel, Pieribone said, provided an opportunity for scientists and policymakers to understand what they have in their waters and encourage countries to protect it.

OceanX and OceanQuest are working with key local institutions, including the South African Environmental Observation Network, the South African National Biodiversity Institute, the South African National Space Agency, the National Research Foundation–South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, and the University of Cape Town, to advance ocean research and conservation efforts to protect ecosystems such as this.

The Afrikaner Seamount

Another fascinating seamount the team explored before arriving in Cape Town was the Afrikaner Seamount, which sits on the Agulhas Plateau, with South Africa’s Exclusive Economic Zone cutting through just the top part of that Agulhas Plateau.

Outside South Africa’s EEZ, this Seamount hasn’t ever been properly mapped before, until now, according to Atkinson.

Atkinson said this seamount was “closer to my heart, because that’s closer to my home.” But as they set out to explore it, the team encountered difficulties due to turbulent conditions.

“What happens is that our incredibly strong, fast flowing Agulhas current comes reaming down our East Coast, breaks off and then retroflexes and flows backwards in these little eddies. They’re like these great big whirlpools out in the deep sea. And that current was simply too fast and too strong to deploy the ROV.

“Because of these conditions, the team was not able to deploy its ROV but did manage to get its CTD tool in the water. This allows scientists to measure conductivity, temperature, and depth (ie the ‘CTD’) in a water column, providing insight into the conditions faced by organisms living in that environment,” Atkinson said.

This brings up all these water samples from different depths. The team managed to get the CTD in the water twice at that seamount. But, unfortunately, Atkinson said the ROV was just simply too high a risk.

“It could get lost, and you can’t afford to lose that kind of equipment. So it was the Agulhas current and her retroflexion eddies that kept the ROV out,” Atkinson said.

But Atkinson hoped they would be able to explore the Afrikaner Seamount on the Agulhas Plateau another time.

She said the way the Afrikaner Seamount was structured was fascinating, with little ridges and peaks adjoining it, and that it was properly deep-sea, “a true deep sea seamount, and we are just desperate to explore it”. DM

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South Africa

South Africa scientists onboard

Deep-sea discoveries

Future of deep-sea protection

The Afrikaner Seamount