The original Atlantis was a 142-foot sailing vessel, which explored the oceans from 1931 to 1966. That was followed by the 210-foot Atlantis-II, which traveled over a million miles for science until 1996. The modern Atlantis is a sophisticated oceanographic research ship with all of the latest technology. It is customized to carry and launch a deep-sea submersible named Alvin, which can take a pilot and two scientists down to 4500 meters (2.8 miles!) beneath the waves.

Atlantis can also host a remotely operated vehicle named Jason, a robot attached to a fiber-optic cable, which can dive as deep as 6500 meters while being controlled on the ship. Pilots see through Jason’s ‘eyes’ via video monitors and use the vehicle’s robot arms to do their work. Atlantis makes 3-D maps of the seafloor using sonar transducers mounted on its hull. For very detailed maps, the ship can lower and tow special vehicles such as Argo II and DSL120 down near the bottom. These “fish” carry sonar, cameras and sensors and can ‘fly’ as deep as 6000 meters.

Instruments and equipment can also be simply lowered from the ship on wires extending as deep as 10,000 meters (over six miles). Equipment can be deployed, seawater properties can be measured and samples such as water, rock, sediment or plankton can be captured and reeled in for study onboard. Computers on its high-tech bridge can steer and navigate Atlantis automatically; a video-game-like joystick replaces the traditional ship’s wheel for manual operation. When the voyage is over, Atlantis can easily parallel park using its powerful 360-degree thrusters to move the ship sideways into its place at the pier.