Benthic images collected by Remotely Operated Vehicle during expedition JC241 in the UK-1 area of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, Pacific Ocean, 2023.

A collection of 7000 benthic still images was obtained using a downward-looking camera mounted on the UK ISIS Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV), dive 413, deployed from RRS James Cook during cruise JC241 in the abyssal plain (~4100 m depth) of the northern part of the UK-1 exploration area of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, Pacific Ocean, in 2023. The ROV was piloted to survey the seafloor across seven 2 km transect lines. The Grasshopper2 GS2-GE-50S5C camera system mounted on the ROV collected downward-looking still images at a target altitude of 3 m above the seabed. Images were colour corrected to enhance visual fidelity based on known sediment and nodule colours and converted from original 8-bit RAW to JPG images. Overlap among images was removed based on automated computer vision, and was later validated with human verification of overlap between successive images. The image set was subsequently annotated using the online platform BIIGLE (Bio-Image Indexing and Graphical Labelling Environment) to derive ecological understanding on seabed community composition under natural dynamics. The data were collected by scientists from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK as part of the NERC-funded Seabed Mining And Resilience To EXperimental impact (SMARTEX) project (NE/T003537/1).