MBARI’s mission is to bring together scientists and engineers to advance our understanding of life in the deep sea. This is dramatically illustrated on our expeditions aboard our new research vessel David Packard. The marine operations crew and submersible pilots are able to fabricate, integrate, and operate any piece of technology that we wish to apply to study the ocean. 

Our pilots do not just fly the remotely operated vehicle (ROV)—they can build and repair it from the frame up. Imagine if your airline pilot was also responsible for maintenance and adding new features to the aircraft before heading to the cockpit. That is what the ROV and ship teams, in conjunction with shore-side machinists and logistical support, do every day.

On this trip, ROV Doc Ricketts sported red lights for filming animals and their natural bioluminescent behavior, blue lights to excite fluorescence, a low-light camera we use to study bioluminescence, and a virtual reality camera to capture three-dimensional immersive views of the deep-sea environment down to 4,000 meters (about 2.5 miles).

Although my group and our collaborators specialize in studying organisms living up in the water column, the water just above the deep seabed is productive and full of unique animals that take advantage of the additional resources available down there. For this trip, the pilots also implemented a new suction sampler attached to the ROV manipulator arm to collect animals living just above the seafloor. In total, we had access to 34 sample containers, two robotic arms, suction pumps, positionable lights, and diverter valves, giving us maximum flexibility in what we could sample.

It is always remarkable how we can use a submersible the size of a delivery truck to collect an animal the size of a peppercorn four kilometers below where we are seated on the ship. On this expedition, we collected many undescribed siphonophores and comb jellies, which we will bring back to the lab for transcriptome and genome sequencing.

The distribution of animals was somewhat unusual compared to previous trips: we saw four vampire squid (usually a rare treat), but none of the swordtail squid (Chiroteuthis), which is usually quite abundant. There is an undescribed species of ctenophore with a black stomach that lives only below 3,000 meters (about 9,800 feet) and is rarely encountered, but we saw dozens of them on this trip, along with countless other comb jellies, siphonophores, and beautiful hydromedusae. We focus a lot on species that are yet to be described, but we have also encountered many of the animals we have recently named, some of which are shown in the photo gallery.

Although opportunities to study the deep water column are scarce and characterizing deep-sea diversity is challenging, this work is critical. Much of Earth’s biological diversity exists within these complex ecosystems, which are inaccessible to most humans, yet are already suffering the consequences of human activities. We are racing to apply new technologies to understand how deep-sea organisms live and how they diversify. Until we understand the stunning variety of life in the deep ocean, we cannot detect how the ecosystem is changing. Once it is disturbed, it will be too late to figure out who was there in the first place.