HONOLULU -- Deep-sea submersibles from the University of Hawaii returned from a mission to determine what to do with possible chemical munitions in the ocean off Pearl Harbor.

New high-definition video gives scientists their closest look yet at the weapons dumped after World War II.

The UH subs are conducting cutting-edge research 5 miles off Pearl Harbor. They dove 1,500 feet to investigate the old munitions dumped there.

The video is extremely detailed. The old weapons are spread out over a wide area on the flat sandy bottom. You can clearly see on the video that the old bombs are rusted, corroded and degraded.

"The munitions are very deteriorated. They've disintegrated, (there is) a lot of rust, a lot of biological buildup on top of them," the principal investigator Margo Edwards said.

Munitions were dumped in oceans around the world back in the 1940s. It is a worldwide problem, but the project in Hawaii is the first to send submersibles down this deep to take samples.

The scientists have not yet determined which may contain chemical munitions. Researchers are scooping up samples of sediment, and taking water samples to determine if chemicals may be leaching from the old weapons.

"So what we're trying to do is look around them, see if we find any evidence at all of chemicals into sediment and water, and if we find something then we'll set up monitoring. There's no plan to bring any of this stuff up to the surface," Edwards said.

The research vessels head back out tomorrow. Their mission will continue until March 18. The reports will be made public.