China's Dayang-95 ocean expedition team recently departed from the Shenzhen Cruise Home Port in south China's Guangdong Province, heading to the Indian Ocean to conduct a scientific survey of seafloor sulfide mineral zones.

The Dayang-95 expedition is coordinated by the China Deep Ocean Affairs Administration and organized by the Second Institute of Oceanography under the Ministry of Natural Resources. The mission's core operational area lies in the southwestern Indian Ocean, home to the world's first international seafloor sulfide exploration area designated by the International Seabed Authority. It is also China's only sulfide mineral exploration area in the international seabed regions.

The domestically designed and built research vessel Dayang will conduct the expedition, with 36 researchers from 13 Chinese institutions participating in the voyage.

To meet the country's needs for resource and environmental assessments of its exploration area, the research team will deploy multiple sets of independently developed, cutting-edge deep-sea equipment. These tools will be used to conduct comprehensive geological and ecological surveys of hydrothermal vent zones, enabling real-time, three-dimensional, and high-resolution evaluations of both the resource potential and the surrounding marine environment in the target area.