(Kingston, RI)--NOAA is announcing that the University of Rhode Island has been picked to lead a new ocean exploration institute.The institute will consist of four other members: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the University of New Hampshire, University of Southern Mississippi and the Ocean Exploration Trust, which will work together over the next five years with NOAA to survey an estimated three-billion acres of U.S. ocean territory.Robert Ballard, who discovered the Titanic shipwreck, will lead the new institute, which will be funded to the tune of 94-million dollars.