The oceans cover over 70% of the planet, and despite relevance to geohazards, mineral resources, and biological diversity, the seafloor and sub-seafloor remain largely unexplored and poorly understood. The seafloor environment is a harsh and dynamic place where the deep ocean presents barriers to most electromagnetic radiation including light and radio communication because of its high pressure, its corrosive composition, cold temperature, and opaqueness. These conditions make it challenging to obtain data to characterize geological, physical, chemical, and biological processes. Most data transmitting systems, autonomous instrumentation, and communication technologies used on land are not possible in the deep ocean and this compounds the problems of obtaining data in real-time. Existing sensors that work under normal terrestrial conditions need to be re-engineered or re-imagined for the deep-sea environment. Building new technology to overcome the conditions found within and beneath the oceans will be an engineering grand challenge and will drive engineering innovation. Enhanced partnerships between the Engineering and the Marine Geology and Geophysics (MG&G) research communities are needed to advance sensing capabilities. To stimulate these partnerships, NSF requests proposals to support conferences that focus on appropriate engineering and marine science challenges and stimulate debate, discussion, visioning, and collaboration between the two research communities. Workshops typically support 20-80 attendees. The budget of a workshop proposal is generally limited to $50,000 but under exceptional circumstances may be supported up to $100,000. Workshop proposals must be submitted by November 15, 2017 for consideration.

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