Expedition log by Senior Research Specialist Steve Litvin, Postdoctoral Fellow Olívia Soares Pereira, and Science Communication Fellow Marike Pinsonneault

What does a complete deep-sea ecosystem actually look like? What shapes the patterns of life we find there? How do these patterns change over time? These are the kinds of questions that have long been difficult to answer—until now.

Innovative technologies developed by MBARI engineers, like the Seafloor Mapping Lab’s Low-Altitude Survey System and the CoMPAS Lab’s Portable Mapping System (PoMS), are opening up a new way of exploring the deep seafloor. By leveraging robotic submersibles to produce detailed maps with centimeter-scale topography and high-resolution photomosaic images, scientists can learn exactly where organisms live and how they’re distributed. Think of it as going from a blurry snapshot to a high-resolution panoramic picture of the seafloor.

Postdoctoral Fellow Olívia Soares Pereira and Senior Research Specialist Steve Litvin from MBARI’s Benthic Biology and Ecology Team joined the Deep Sea 3D expedition to put the CoMPAS Lab’s advanced mapping tools to work at two remarkable sites: Sponge Ridge and Central Slope Corals, both home to thriving gardens of sponges, corals, and a wide diversity of marine life. 

While the Benthic Biology and Ecology Team and our partners at the Monterey Bay Aquarium have studied Central Slope Corals in the past, this is a new location for the CoMPAS Lab. The expedition team was excited to have the opportunity to collect new high-resolution mapping data here. The maps generated by MBARI’s engineers will help the team understand what shapes these communities and, with repeated surveys over time, how those patterns shift and evolve.

Beyond mapping, the expedition team also used the MiniROV to help recover rock samples from the seafloor. From these, Olívia has already identified an impressive variety of specimens: polychaete worms, sponges, crabs, and other small crustaceans. Back on shore, she will examine these samples more closely for detailed species identification, helping to build a fuller picture of the invertebrate community at these sites. At Sur Ridge, where the Benthic Biology and Ecology Team has focused mainly on larger fauna, they hope to shed light on how the smaller invertebrates fit into the food web of this ecologically important area.