Clams as far as they can see Nancy Barr When the ROV Doc Ricketts arrived at an extensive clam bed deep in Monterey Canyon this morning, it was soon evident that things had not changed drastically since the last time the site was mapped by David Caress and his team. That answered the first question …

Taking in the big picture Nancy Barr While it has long been possible to capture video and still images in the deep sea, most cameras used at depth have a very limited field of view and—unless the water is perfectly clear—must be very close to their subject matter. The stereo cameras used in this week’s …

The first survey Nancy Barr The first low-altitude survey of this expedition centered on an area surrounding an instrument node located about 30 kilometers offshore at a depth of 1,850 meters in Monterey Canyon. Here’s how it works: Four systems record data as the ROV runs a preprogrammed path across a 100-meter-square section of the …

Annette Gough joined MBARI as an administrator in 1988 (the institute was established in 1987) and is retiring this year.

The US Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program recently selected one of Kelly Benoit-Bird’s research as its Resource Conservation and Climate Change Project of the Year.

New research findings highlight a unique visual adaptation in a deep-sea squid, the cockeyed squid, which has eyes that are grossly different in size and structure.

During a study to learn how sediments flow through submarine canyons, a one-ton monitoring device on the seafloor was swept down Monterey Canyon and partially buried—twice in one year.

Last week researchers working onboard the R/V Rachel Carson received a surprise visitor—a handsome seabird called a brown booby. Brown boobies are usually associated with warm tropical waters. This bird was far from home!

A new paper in the journal PLOS One shows that some species of juvenile rockfish find it harder to exert themselves in acidified seawater, but other species are more adaptable.

MBARI’s Benthic Rover, an autonomous seafloor crawler, recently broke it's own world record, spending over a year autonomously crawling across the deep seafloor and collecting scientific data without any help from humans.

Axial Seamount, a large underwater volcano off of the Oregon coast, is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, having last erupted in 2015. At the Fall 2016 meeting of the American Geophysical Union, MBARI researchers unveiled a new seafloor map that reveals previously undocumented lava flows from the 2015 eruption.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently approved a five-year, $11 million grant to the Central and Northern California Ocean Observing System (CeNCOOS). On December 5-6, 2016, CeNCOOS will hold its annual meeting to discuss recent discoveries and future plans for monitoring the coast using funds from their new federal grant.

A century after its first discovery, the existence of the giant larvacean, B. charon, was confirmed by MBARI scientists when a routine sample collection turned extraordinary.

A new MBARI robot will add to the midwater observations researchers have been making with remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) for nearly two decades.

An unusual deep-sea fish that was previously identified in the Southeastern Pacific has recently been found to live around the Hawaiian Islands and off the coast of Central California as well.

A recent paper shows that some juvenile king crabs hitch rides on wandering sea cucumbers, perhaps as a way of evading predators.

MBARI’s newest senior scientist, Kelly Benoit-Bird, uses sound to observe animals such as seabirds and dolphins as they chase their prey underwater.

Over 40 ocean technologists attended a workshop at MBARI to review the state of performance of engineering infrastructure of ocean observatories and science sensors.

During a recent mission, MBARI's Wave Glider Tiny ran into some problems. When MBARI engineers went to sea to recover the Wave Glider, they discovered major damage to the fiberglass hull, mast, and solar panels.

Lonny Lundsten and Michelle Côté While the ROV and AUV surveys are the priorities for this research expedition, as per the multidisciplinary nature of this mission, we are constantly designing other science tasks that are undertaken as time allows. Investigating the release of methane into the water column from seafloor features is an additional area of interest for the scientists …