Unique Organisms in the Deep Sea In addition to documenting the ecological zonation of the water column in the Gulf of California, we are venturing into parts of the ocean that have likely not been explored by humans before, in particular, not with the deep-sea observational tools we are using during this cruise. We have …

MiniROV and ROV Doc Ricketts Today was another very successful day aboard the Western Flyer, with nearly six-hour dives with both the MiniROV and ROV Doc Ricketts. Working with both ROVs lets us cover a greater depth range than with one alone. As I mentioned in the February 22 post, ROV Doc Ricketts is capable of very deep dives (up to …

Oxygen Minimum Zones My research program at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel investigates the life cycles, behavior, and ecology of pelagic fauna and, in particular, oceanic cephalopods. One specific goal of my work is to establish a baseline of pelagic animal diversity, distributions, and abundance in relation to the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) …

Coping with Low Oxygen Levels Nutrients are brought to the Gulf of California by runoff, causing phytoplankton to thrive near the sea surface. The phytoplankton add oxygen to the surface layers as does the exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere. This makes the surface waters relatively oxygen-rich. When phytoplankton die, they sink down from …

MiniROV Deployment We began the day bright and early, ready to deploy the MiniROV. This small ROV was designed as a fly-away system that could be shipped anywhere in the world and used on any ship. It has been used to explore Arctic seafloors multiple times. Now it’s getting the chance to explore the warm …

ROV Doc Ricketts to the rescue Upon arrival in La Paz, the midwater scientists were informed that our colleagues on the R/V Rachel Carson needed the help of the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Doc Ricketts. The autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), used to map areas of the seafloor to help scientists target interesting features, had gotten caught on something not far …

Wrapping up It’s 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon and we are getting close to La Paz, where the Chavez team will disembark. The first leg of the Gulf of California expedition has come to an end! The crew and the ship, however, will be continuing on to the next leg of the expedition with a …

Another busy day I often mention the schedule we have of dawn, noon, dusk, and midnight casts but in reality, those four cast times are only the main events of each day. Today, for example, we had a cast at dawn, a pump cast at about 11 a.m., the recovery of the second sediment trap …

Second day at time-series station We’ve almost made it through the second day. We’re tired and hot (it’s been in the high 80s (F) every day, and even warmer inside the lab), but generally pleased with how smoothly we’re getting through the work. That doesn’t mean that every single cast goes perfectly. Today at dawn, …

The First Endless Day It’s 9:30 p.m. on our first day at the time-series station. Fifteen hours ago we were all on deck, ready to begin our dawn cast. As I had predicted last night, the nervousness proved to be for nothing—or maybe it’s what kept us on our toes—but the cast went off without …

“We’ve got a lot of prepping to do!” After our nightly meeting and a presentation by Martín Hernández, the group’s focus shifted to preparation for the continuous experiments that will begin tomorrow, literally at the crack of dawn. As usual, we stopped to make a CTD cast at a GOC 2012 site. The results of …

Another Day, Another Cast At about 1:00 p.m. we reoccupied another GOC 2012 site and made our first pump cast on this expedition. Gernot Friederich, an ocean chemist at MBARI, has designed a system of water collection that differs from the Niskin bottle method. The cable that lowers the CTD rosette has a tube running …

Back to Sea, Back to Work Although we crossed into a different time zone today (we are now in Mountain Time), the Western Flyer has no need to change its clocks an hour ahead. We will be on the boat for the next week so really, it matters very little what the time is elsewhere and it …

Time to refuel After just one day in port, the scientists were ready to get moving and back to science. Therefore, no one was too pleased when our fuel truck was delayed, pushing our departure back. The fueling process itself takes about two hours as 75,000 liters of fuel are pumped into the ship. Once …

Aquí estamos en México We arrived in Ensenada early this morning and began the process of clearing the R/V Western Flyer through Mexican customs. The process went smoothly and Francisco Chavez was able to make it off the boat in time for his talk at El Caracol—the soon-to-be maritime museum of Ensenada where he spoke about the Gulf …

Passing the time in transit Today was an unusual day for the scientists aboard the Western Flyer—we made no new casts and spent the entire day in transit. Travelling at about 10 nautical miles per hour since leaving M1 yesterday, we are now off the coast of San Diego. We are making good time even with …

First day of the expedition Like many of you reading this cruise log, I am not a scientist and I’ve never been on a research expedition before. Needless to say, boarding the Western Flyer—an MBARI research vessel named for the sardine boat that John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts took to the Sea of Cortez in 1940—this …

In early January 2015, a team of MBARI engineers, led by Andy Hamilton, set out to sea to recover an experimental buoy that creates electrical energy from ocean waves. This power buoy had been deployed six miles southwest of Moss Landing Harbor for 131 days, while engineers tested the system’s ability to handle storms.

Dec 10, 2014 – MBARI Senior Research Technician Shannon Johnson Williams described five new species of Alviniconcha snails using DNA sequences. These snails live in the hottest and most acidic waters near hydrothermal vents. Because they live in these extreme conditions, Alviniconcha snails have severely degraded shells covered in spikes or they have no shells at all.

In the deep waters of the ocean, there are no places to hide. To avoid predators, many deep-sea animals have dark-colored, reflective, or transparent bodies. Others have evolved elaborate methods of deception.