Researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) will present 21 different talks and posters at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco during the week of December 3 to 7, 2012. This page highlights a few of these presentations.
Oct 31, 2012 – Ten thousand feet below the ocean’s surface, the seafloor is a dark, desolate, and dangerous place where even the most benign-looking creatures can be deadly predators. Recently, a team of scientists discovered an unlikely new carnivorous species— the harp sponge (Chondrocladia lyra).
Sept 26, 2012 – In the 100 years since marine biologists hauled the first vampire squid up from the depths of the sea, perhaps a dozen scientific papers have been published on this mysterious animal, but no one has been able to figure out exactly what it eats. A new paper by MBARI Postdoctoral Fellow Henk-Jan Hoving and Senior Scientist Bruce Robison shows for the first time that the vampire squid uses two thread-like filaments to capture bits of organic debris that sink down from the ocean surface into the deep sea.
Sept 25, 2012 – Several hundred researchers and decision-makers from around the world are gathering in Monterey this week for the Third International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World. MBARI researchers have been instrumental in the planning of this conference, and are describing their cutting-edge research in a variety of talks and posters at the meeting.
Sept 21, 2012 – In the remote, ice-shrouded Beaufort Sea, methane (the main component in natural gas) has been bubbling out of the seafloor for thousands of years. MBARI geologist Charlie Paull and his colleagues at the Geological Survey of Canada are trying to figure out where this gas is coming from, how fast it is bubbling out of the sediments, and how it affects the shape and stability of the seafloor.
Sept 17, 2012 – This month MBARI researchers are conducting a two-week-long, in-depth oceanographic experiment to track the nutrients that fertilize algal blooms off the coast of Central California. As part of MBARI’s ongoing CANON (Controlled, Agile, and Novel Observing Network) initiative, scientists will be examining how ammonium—a key nutrient for microscopic marine algae—affects what researchers call the ocean’s “biological pump.”
Aug 23, 2012 – In a recent paper, MBARI researcher Lonny Lundsten and his coauthors describe the first observations of these rare fish in their natural, deep-sea habitat.
Jul 19, 2012 – Many experiments have documented the effects of ocean acidification in the laboratory, but few have been performed in the natural environment. A recent article in Scientific Reports describes the first controlled field experiment to test the effects of acidification on coral reefs—a multi-institutional effort that involved several MBARI engineers and was based on pioneering work at MBARI.
June 25, 2012 – Axial seamount, 480 km (300 miles) off the coast of northern Oregon, is one of the best studied underwater volcanoes in the world. Now MBARI researchers have created the world’s most detailed map of an underwater lava flow, showing lava that erupted from Axial Seamount during April 2011. They describe this mapping effort and related geological discoveries in a recent paper in Nature Geoscience.
May 11, 2012 – MBARI engineer Andy Hamilton looks out his office window in Moss Landing and points at the waves crashing on the beach below. “Pretty impressive, aren’t they? You’d think there’d be a way to make use of all that energy.” Since 2009, Hamilton has led a team of engineers trying to do just that.
May 11, 2012 – “As the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) descended into the blue depths above the Alarcón Rise, the control room was abuzz with anticipation,” wrote MBARI geologist Julie Martin in her April 22nd cruise log. “Today we [are] planning to dive on one of the strangest environments in the deep sea: a hydrothermal vent field.”
May 9, 2012 – With its ability to detect ocean events ranging from sewage spills to harmful algal blooms, MBARI’s Environmental Sample Processor (ESP) has immense potential for monitoring ocean water quality.
May 1, 2012 – MBARI researchers have developed a new instrument that allows them to study the breathing of deep-sea animals without removing the animals from their environment.
Mar 16, 2012 – Adding new instruments to an oceanographic mooring or underwater observatory can be a difficult and time-consuming process. Each instrument has to be custom programmed to communicate with a host computer or observatory network.
Mar 9, 2012 – Tiny animals called zooplankton swarm like insects in the coastal waters of the ocean. They provide dinner for a host of larger animals, ranging from fish to whales. But these microscopic organisms also challenge the scientists who study them because they are constantly drifting with the movement of ocean currents.
Feb 16, 2012 – The evocative dance media piece Ocean, a collaboration between MBARI and the Monterey Bay-area dance company SpectorDance, is venturing into new waters this year.
Feb 6, 2012 – MBARI marine biologist Steve Haddock and research technician Susan von Thun’s video, “There’s No Such Thing as a Jellyfish,” recently won honorable mention in the National Science Foundation’s 2011 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.
Feb 5, 2012 – Following up on tantalizing discoveries made during a 2003 trip to the gulf, MBARI researchers will be returning to the Gulf of California in February 2012 for a three-month expedition.
Jan 30, 2012 – On January 30, 2012, a group of researchers led by MBARI marine biologist Ken Smith and engineer Alana Sherman left Bermuda and sailed south into the Sargasso Sea. This is Smith’s third research expedition to this region using the research vessel Lone Ranger, operated by the Schmidt Ocean Institute.
Jan 17, 2012 – For over 20 years, the Point Lobos has been MBARI’s workhorse research vessel, ferrying the remotely operated vehicle Ventana out of Moss Landing Harbor several times a week.
Research programs at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) encompass the entire ocean, from the surface waters to the deep seafloor, and from the coastal zone to the open sea. The need to understand the ocean in all its complexity and variability drives MBARI's research and development efforts.