During this cruise, we completed 12 ROV dives, collected 49 vibracores, and 201 push cores. The length of these samples total 11,215 centimeters of sediment cores. Of that, we sliced, bagged, and labeled over 4,009 one-centimeter slices of mud. We hope these muddy samples can shed some light on how these features were formed. This …

What can we learn from sampling the seafloor and how do we do it? On this cruise, we are studying the processes that modify the seafloor in an area offshore Morro Bay, where a wind farm may be located in the future. The environmental conditions and stability of the seafloor are important factors to consider …

Today we recovered a mooring that has been gathering information about this site since September 2018. The mooring is equipped with a current meter that measures a vertical profile of bottom currents every 30 seconds. There is also a sediment trap eight meters above the seafloor used to capture sediment and organic material as it settles …

Off the coast of central California, there are more than 10,000 depressions, 10 meters (33 feet) deep, known as pockmarks. We do not know how these large depressions were formed, however, we do know they never overlap, are beautifully circular, and roughly 100 meters in diameter. MBARI’s detailed mapping surveys conducted in 2018 show that …