News from MBARI — 2013
This page summarizes recent discoveries, achievements, publications, and events at MBARI. Some of these are documented in news releases or full-length feature stories. Others are simply short news briefs that appeared on the MBARI home page.
To see news items from a specific year, please select a year from the list below:| View MBARI news from: | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 |
| 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 |
View MBARI research stories and researcher web pages grouped by topic.
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News Brief — 29 March 2013: Deep-sea vent animals not as isolated as they seem Miles below the ocean surface, diverse ecosystems flourish at hydrothermal vents. Without sunlight, animals live off of bacteria that thrive on chemicals billowing out of the Earth's crust. These strange communities appear entirely detached from life on land. However, new research from MBARI biologist Bob Vrijenhoek suggests that vent ecosystems might be more sensitive to global environmental change than scientists originally thought. | |
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Feature Story — 20 March 2013: The ECOHAB experiment—A first step toward predicting harmful algal blooms Killing wildlife and occasionally sickening people, harmful algal blooms can be more than just a nuisance. The ECOHAB (Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms) research program is providing key information that may one day allow researchers to predict when and where blooms are likely to occur. During March 2013, ECOHAB researchers will be conducting a month-long study of harmful algal blooms in Southern California, using a variety of oceanographic tools and techniques developed at MBARI. |
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^Concentrations of chlorophyll, an indicator of algal blooms, over the San Pedro Shelf, during the March 2013 ECOHAB experiment.
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Feature Story — 15 February 2013: Jellyfish blooms pulse cyclically through time A surge in jellyfish blooms over the past decade has spawned similar blooms of public fascination with these sea drifters and their apparent saturation of our oceans. Images of fish nets and nuclear-plant intake pipes clogged with gelatinous sacks of tentacles have flared concerns for fisheries and public safety. But recent work from an international team of marine scientists, including MBARI biologist Steve Haddock, suggests that this recent population explosion might only reflect half of the jellyfish story. |
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^A swarm of Chrysaora jellies swims near the surface of Monterey Bay.
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News Brief — 1 February 2013: Diverse groups of marine microbes respond in unison to changes in their environment The open ocean contains an amazing diversity of extremely tiny organisms called picoplankton. A new paper by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) uses cutting-edge genomic research to show how these infinitesimal creatures react in synchrony to changes in their environment. | |
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Feature Story — 30 January 2013: Underwater robots help discover hidden faults Hidden beneath ocean waves and masked by sand and mud on the seafloor, underwater faults are notoriously difficult to see and even more difficult to study. As a result, geologists struggle to evaluate the risks associated with these faults and often can't include them in seismic hazard assessments. Now, with improved technology available for underwater imaging, MBARI geologist Charlie Paull and his colleagues at the U.S. Geological Survey have brought some of these hidden faults into view for the first time. |
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^Major faults within the California Borderland.
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