MBARI submersible makes one thousandth dive
December 26, 2017 – Remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Doc Ricketts completed its one thousandth dive on December 21, 2017, marking a significant milestone for the vehicle and its team of pilots.
MBARI News—2017
Multi-year submarine-canyon study challenges textbook theories about turbidity currents
December 11, 2017 – Results of the Coordinated Canyon Experiment presented at the Fall 2017 meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
New vehicles to study microbial life in Hawaiian waters
Dec 7, 2017 – The first of the three MBARI autonomous vehicles designed to document microbial diversity in the ocean will be deployed off the Hawaiian coast on Friday.
Unique field survey yields first big-picture view of deep-sea food webs
Dec 6, 2017 – A new paper by MBARI researchers Anela Choy, Steve Haddock, and Bruce Robison documents the first comprehensive study of deep-sea food webs.
One fish, two fish—using a new MBARI-designed camera system to count rockfish
November 30, 2017 – MBARI has partnered with The Nature Conservancy and other organizations to design a new camera system for counting threatened rockfish.
Illustrated field guide shows deep-sea animals off the Big Sur coast
November 16, 2017 – MBARI and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary recently worked together to create an illustrated field guide to Sur Ridge, an underwater mountain range off the Big Sur coast.
ROV Ventana undergoes an overhaul
November 14, 2017 – Remotely operated vehicle Ventana is undergoing an overhaul while its host, MBARI research vessel Rachel Carson, is in the shipyard for an important engine upgrade.
New model predicts locations of biological hotspots in the ocean
Oct 26, 2017 – Why do certain coastal areas become meccas for wildlife? A new computer model by MBARI researchers can predict the locations of such biological hotspots.
MBARI biologists on the trail of “brain-eating amoebae”
Oct 2, 2017 – A recent field experiment in Yellowstone National Park saw MBARI researchers dodging hordes of tourists and herds of elk while searching for “brain-eating amoebae.”
Student’s animations show inner workings of research vehicles
Sept 26, 2017 – A science illustration student was inspired by a visit to MBARI to create a series of animations to show the inner workings of MBARI’s autonomous underwater vehicles.
Murres dive into acoustic ecology
Sept 19, 2017 – An unusual data signal recorded in the ocean with an echosounder turned out not to be fish, but diving seabirds.
Testing the waters by taking to the air
Sept 13, 2017 – Aerial platforms such as UAVs, or drones, as they are more commonly known, are making headway into scientific applications due to the variety of remote sensing capabilities they offer.
Newly described “parasol” sponges are graceful but deadly (to small crustaceans)
Sept 5, 2017 – Marine biologists describe three new species of predatory sponges that live in the depths off California and Baja California.
Tracking down the whale-shark highway
Aug 30, 2017 – MBARI oceanographer John Ryan and his colleagues discovered that whale sharks swim across the Eastern Tropical Pacific following fronts—dynamic boundaries between warm and cold ocean waters.
Larvaceans provide a pathway for transporting microplastics into deep-sea food webs
Aug 16, 2017 – A new paper by MBARI researchers shows that filter-feeding animals called giant larvaceans can collect and consume microplastic particles, potentially carrying microplastics to the deep seafloor.
Speeding up sound sampling
Aug 11, 2017 – Sound may be weightless, but echosounders aren’t. To study Monterey Bay’s ecology, Scientist Kelly Benoit-Bird uses an echosounder with five different transducers, weighing about 165 pounds.
Special visitor joins an MBARI expedition
Aug 8, 2017 – Guests sometimes join MBARI expeditions, but a special kind of visitor dropped in on a recent research cruise.
MBARI Open House attracts visitors interested in ocean science and technology
Aug 2, 2017 – The institute opened its doors to the public, providing visitors with a once-a-year opportunity to talk with scientists, engineers, and marine operations crews about their work.
Environmental Sample Processor monitors drinking water in Lake Erie
Aug 3, 2017 – MBARI’s Environmental Sample Processors (ESPs), originally designed to study toxic algal blooms in the ocean, are now being used to protect municipal drinking-water supplies.
New study challenges prevailing theory about how deep-sea vents are colonized
Jul 24, 2017 – Despite their close proximity, two recently discovered hydrothermal vent fields in the Gulf of California host very different animal communities. This finding contradicts a common scientific assumption that neighboring vents will share similar animal communities.
About MBARI
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.