Deep SEARCH eDNA metabarcoding data

The Deep SEARCH Project (Deep sea exploration to advance research on cold corals/canyon/cold seep habitats) included a cruise in April 2019 aboard the NOAA ship Ron Brown to various sites along the Mid-Atlantic North American coast. An ROV was used to collect samples of bottom water at these sites, which were then subjected to eDNA extraction and analyses. This data release describes what samples were collected for eDNA analyses, and how eDNA was extracted, sequenced, and bioinformatically analyzed.