A gallery of some of the amazing deep-sea animals we observed during this expedition:

We are fortunate to have two aquarists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, MacKenzie Bubel and Wyatt Patry, working with us on this expedition. They are busy collecting an array of new deep-sea animals and have been able to keep several animals alive longer than we ever have before. They are hoping to successfully culture several key species. The cold room …

The Midwater Ecology Group is out here studying a layer in the water column called the oxygen minimum zone, or OMZ. The OMZ is a layer where the oxygen levels are lower than the waters above. In the Monterey Bay area the OMZ is typically 600 to 900 meters below the surface. OMZs form where large amounts of organic …

We steamed for just over four hours until we reached our first dive site at approximately 3,000 meters (almost two miles). The first few hours of the dive were spent filling the Midwater Respirometry System (MRS) sample buckets with mysid shrimp for a deep deployment. According to Research Specialist Kim Reisenbichler the shrimp are “good …

Scientists at MBARI recently found a way to identify several groups of glowing marine organisms by the light they produce.

Computer models suggest that marine protected areas improve recovery of sea life after major population declines.

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 …

On February 7, 2019, Frank Roberts, an emeritus on MBARI’s board of directors, passed away at the age of 99.

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 …

Walter Munk was a giant in the world of oceanography. He died February 8, 2019 at his home in La Jolla, California.

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 …

A new study shows that anchovies and krill in Monterey Bay form dense aggregations during upwelling events caused by strong northwest winds.

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 …

Beaked whales congregate in parts of a Navy sonar test range off Southern California that have dense patches of deep-sea squid that are lacking in nearby “sonar-free” areas.

Marine biologists recently discovered large schools of fishes thriving in low-oxygen conditions that would be deadly to most other fish.

Peter Brewer receives the prestigious National Science and Technology Award in Beijing, China.

In 1995, an oil-field work boat sank suddenly off Southern California. Twenty-three years later, an MBARI ROV pilot who worked on that boat helped find the wreck.

Ocean researchers propose a new "pole-to-pole" Marine Biodiversity Observation Network

Marine biologists recently discovered five new species of colorful nudibranchs on the deep seafloor offshore of California and Baja California.

Adopt-A-Float program lets grade-school students participate in a major scientific study of the vast Southern Ocean.