Along with scientists from MBARI and the U.S. Geological Survey, we have two graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher from Stanford University on the R/V Western Flyer with us. Each is interested in something slightly different but all are eager to help out and gain first-hand experience with the many tasks required to complete this research. …

Each day starts at 6:00 a.m. with preparing the ROV Doc Ricketts for the first dive of the day. Preparations include making sure we are in the correct spot on the map and all our sediment coring equipment is ready to go on the ROV. The ship’s stellar crew and ROV pilots jump into coordinated …

If you take a styrofoam cup into the deep sea, the immense water pressure will squeeze all the air out of the cups compressing them into miniature versions of the original cup. The deeper the ROV goes, the smaller the cups get as more air is squeezed out. Prior to departing, we packed cups decorated …

Yesterday, we set sail for the Southern California expedition. At the start of every cruise a safety meeting is held for all the participating scientists to learn how the Western Flyer is run and to go over all the ship rules and safety protocols. During our long transit south, we made a short stop offshore …

MBARI and the Monterey Bay Aquarium co-host symposium that is bringing together researchers from at least 34 countries.

MBARI and Monterey Bay Aquarium leaders will be participating in the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco.

Researchers from MBARI and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration are testing a new underwater robot that will swim around Lake Erie monitoring algae and toxins in the water.

Today is the last day of this research cruise. Our station is in the bay and we awoke to feeding whales surrounding the ship this morning. We will recover the MRS, put all our samples away, clean the lab, and head back to the beach. It has been a productive and interesting expedition for all the researchers, but we are looking …

Yesterday was an early start with a goal of retrieving the MRS from the 2,000 meter mooring. During the dive, we spotted a rare deep-sea jelly, Vampyrocrossota childressi and a very full black swallower, Chiasmodon niger.

Data from a network of robotic floats carrying high-tech sensors suggest the Southern Ocean may take up much less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than expected.

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Postdoctoral Fellow Chan Lin My goal here is to collect amphipods, specifically from the genera Paraphronima, Cystisoma, Streetsia, Lanceola, and Scypholanceola. Each of those hyperiids has a distinct eye type. I am interested in studying how their vision works and how their visual world is represented in the brain. This is my first ever …

Software developed by MBARI engineers guided a sea-going robot as it monitored the plume of hot seawater created by an active lava flow in Hawai`i.

Our mission today was to fill and deploy the MRS at our deep mooring site (2,800 meters). Locating target animals is a challenge at this food-limited depth, but as the ROV flew closer to the seafloor we were able to successfully fill the chambers with a mysid shrimp, an eelpout, and several snailfishes. Respiration rates will be measured in the field over the next 48 hours, …

The Society for Sedimentary Geology recently awarded MBARI Geologist Charles Paull the Francis P. Shepard medal for marine geology.

MBARI welcomed visitors to its annual Open House on July 21st. Visitors got the opportunity to speak to staff about their work and learn about the research and development conducted at MBARI.

A recent paper in ScienceRobotics describes a new bio-inspired sampling system that was tested using MBARI's remotely operated vehicle Ventana.

For 15 years, EARTH workshops have brought scientists and teachers together to develop lesson plans using real science data.

A team of MBARI scientists is monitoring abalones under carefully controlled environmental conditions for two months to learn more about how these animals will fare in future ocean conditions.

A new paper in Nature Microbiology describes cutting edge experiments and genomic techniques showing how microscopic marine algae acclimate to changing ocean conditions.

What is DeepPIV? You may have asked yourself this question as you’ve read our expedition posts. DeepPIV is an instrument that we are using extensively during our ROV dives, and it was developed and built at MBARI. DeepPIV allows us to measure fluid motion in the deep sea in unprecedented detail. It is based on a …