The cruise activities don’t end when we get back to shore. Next, comes the data analyses, interpretation, and communication through peer-reviewed research papers, social media, and press releases. The sediment traps and Sedimentation Event Sensor recorded another period during which large amounts of marine snow reached the seafloor. Interestingly, data from the Benthic Rover, time-lapse …

Contributor: University of Aveiro (Portugal) Postdoctoral Researcher Luciana Genio Knowing where and for how long the pelagic larvae of deep-sea benthic animals live in the water column is extremely important to understand how populations respond to natural (e.g., climate and food supply) and human (e.g., pollution, overfishing, mining) disturbances. On this cruise, we deployed a …

Over the 30-year (and counting) time-series study at Station M, we have seen changes in the biological carbon pump with changing sea surface conditions along the California coast. The abyss is not the invariable environment most people once envisioned. Short-term processes and events can have major impacts on long-term patterns. Every two hours, the Sedimentation …

The Benthic Rover is a fully autonomous underwater vehicle that collects data for the Pelagic-Benthic Coupling Lab’s studies of seafloor carbon consumption. Capable of yearlong deployments, it is the only untethered underwater rover in the world operating at abyssal depths. The Rover has transited over 11 kilometers of abyssal seafloor at 4,000 meters depth since …