A key objective of this research program is to improve our understanding of subsurface geology and permafrost and gas hydrate distribution. We hope to quantify the occurrence and release of fluid and methane gas at depth with an aim of understanding sediment instability, both landslide-type and fluid-related. The primary geophysical method used to asses this scientific question is marine reflection seismic, which involves transmitting controlled …

Scott Dallimore and Stephen Wolfe The Araon science program began immediately upon crossing the Canadian border with targeted multi-beam and sub-bottom mapping of an interesting trough feature that occurs on the Yukon shelf. After about 36 hours of transiting and science activities the ship arrived at Herschel Island to pick up three marine mammal observers …

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.

August 26-30, 2017 Our 2017 Arctic Expedition kicked off with members of the three science teams from KOPRI, MBARI, and the GSC assembling in Barrow, Alaska, on August 26 and transferring, via helicopter, to the R/V Araon, which was anchored just offshore. Within two hours, and after many helicopter flights, all personnel and equipment were …

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.

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.

Guests sometimes join MBARI expeditions, but a special kind of visitor dropped in on a recent research cruise.

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.

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.

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.

Throughout the world ocean, animals congregate at certain depths. A new paper in Limnology and Oceanography shows that, rather than consisting of a random mixture of animals, these deep-scattering layers contain discrete groups of squids, fishes, and crustaceans.

In the spring of 2015, Monterey Bay experienced one of the most toxic algal blooms ever. A new paper shows that this bloom became particularly toxic because of an unusually low ratio of silicate to nitrate in Bay Waters.

David Needham Today Co-Chief Scientists Sebastian Sudek and Charmaine Yung directed the ROV Doc Ricketts to observe and collect deep-sea benthic invertebrates, such as sponges and corals, at the Davidson Seamount so we can study their microbiomes. Today we also accomplished the deepest deployment ever of the in situ ultraviolet spectrophotometer (ISUS), a sensor developed …

David Needham One of our goals today was to find and sample a large phytoplankton bloom to study phytoplankton and bacterial associations. Although blooms often occur in the spring, they can be hard to predict, and the ocean doesn’t give its secrets away easily! Fortunately, we identified a large bloom using observations from satellite chlorophyll …

David Needham The first day and a half of our cruise was busy and exciting. After an initial delay of six hours due to rough seas and strong winds, we had a successful deployment of the ROV Doc Ricketts aboard the R/V Western Flyer. With the help of the robotic arms of the ROV and the …

An acidic ocean has been shown to affect many species, but the impacts on entire communities are more complicated.

MBARI’s newly printed 2016 Annual Report is filled with ocean-research adventures and discoveries. It is available now as a PDF file on MBARI’s website.

The importance of eDNA Meilina Dalit Today we repeated yesterday’s activities of coordinating simultaneous sampling from the R/V Western Flyer (CTD casts), the Reuben Lasker (midwater trawls), and LRAUV Aku (Environmental Sample Processor sampling). While LRAUV Aku is autonomously collecting samples with a third-generation Environmental Sample Processor (ESP), Research Specialist Kevan Yamahara is also archiving …

New partnerships and technologies add an exciting new dimension to MBARI's 2017 CANON experiment.

Meeting the Reuben Lasker Meilina Dalit This is an expedition with many moving parts, and today we added the R/V Reuben Lasker, a NOAA ship, into the mix. We rendezvoused with the ship at an offshore upwelling front (the boundary between cold, nutrient-rich upwelled water and warmer offshore water) that was identified by our fleet …