Oct 29, 2015 – MBARI divers conduct routine maintenance on the M1 mooring in Monterey Bay. The M1 mooring was installed in 1989 when the Institute was only two years old. Since then, the buoy, equipped with dozens of different scientific instruments, has collected over 25 years of data.
Oct 20, 2015 – MBARI researchers have been monitoring seawater temperatures at our M1 mooring in the middle of Monterey Bay since 1990. Biological oceanographer Francisco Chavez has been analyzing these data to find out how they reflect conditions in the Pacific Ocean as a whole.
Oct 7, 2015 – When remotely operated vehicle Ventana dove near the head of Monterey Canyon yesterday, in the area of intense whale activity, the vehicle was surrounded by the very thing attracting the whales—an incredibly thick school of anchovies.
Aug 18, 2015 – On August 18, researchers on board the research vessel Nautilus used the ROVs Hercules and Argus to dive on the wreck of the USS Macon, a rigid-frame dirigible airship that crashed off the Big Sur coast in 1935.
Jul 31, 2015 – On July 27, Kakani Katija and collaborators Alana Sherman, Dale Graves, Chad Kecy, and Bruce Robison tested DeepPIV (particle image velocimetry) using MBARI’s MiniROV. The DeepPIV instrument consists of a laser and optics that can illuminate “slices” through transparent animals (such as larvaceans) using a single plane of light.
Jul 13, 2015 – Last Thursday, MBARI Postdoctoral Fellow Stephanie Bush and her team from the Monterey Bay Aquarium went to sea aboard the R/V Rachel Carson in Monterey Bay. They were on a mission to collect octopuses in the genus Opisthoteuthis to be used for species description and display at the aquarium.
Jun 11, 2015 – Last week, a group of MBARI engineers deployed three long-range autonomous underwater vehicles (LRAUVs). Developed at MBARI, LRAUVs can travel several thousands of kilometers in the ocean, collecting data as they go.
Jun 3, 2015 – On May 28, MBARI Postdoctoral Fellow Kakani Katija presented a talk at the TEDWomen conference in Monterey about her research studying how marine organisms interact with the fluid world. As a bioengineer, she is interested in the underwater “footprints”, or wakes that organisms leave behind as they move through the water.
May 26, 2015 – If you’ve visited beaches in the Monterey Bay area earlier this year, you may have seen young California sea lions stranded on the beaches, weak and emaciated from lack of food. Recently, the Marine Mammal Center has reported that juvenile and sub-adult sea lions have also been stranding on beaches as a result of domoic acid poisoning.
May 19, 2015 – Scientist Steve Haddock, Electrical Engineer Chad Kecy, and Mechanical Engineer François Cazenave introduced the SeeStar camera system at the Bay Area Maker Faire, a large festival held May 16th and 17th to celebrate invention and creativity by showcasing creations that relate to science, engineering, or art.
Apr 29, 2015 – The Gulf of California expedition is nearing its end, with one more leg led by Chief Scientist Charlie Paull starting on May 7. The R/V Western Flyer and its crew have been in the Gulf of California since early February and have completed six research cruises, each for a different MBARI science team and their collaborators with different research goals.
Mar 23, 2015 – On March 17, MBARI’s research vessel Western Flyer returned to the dock in La Paz after a two-week midwater-biology cruise. While the ship was at the dock, researcher Steve Haddock and ROV Pilot Randy Prickett dove underneath the boat to clear a line that had become wrapped around part of the boat. The ROV pilots spotted the offending line during an ROV launch when visibility was particularly good.
Feb 27, 2015 – MBARI has a new art piece in front of its main entrance—an old propeller from one of its research vessels, the Rachel Carson. The bronze propeller is five feet across and weighs 1,000 pounds; a crane was required to install it in place. The R/V Rachel Carson originally operated as an oil field supply vessel in the Gulf of Mexico.
Feb 18, 2015 – Last fall, MBARI hosted the first two phases of the Wendy Schmidt Ocean Health XPRIZE competition. The competition challenged teams to design robust pH sensors that could accurately and affordably measure ocean acidification.
Jan 14, 2015 – Ocean acidification poses a threat to the life and diversity of marine ecosystems. MBARI scientists and engineers have designed a sophisticated tool for studying the effects of ocean acidification that can be applied to various marine environments, from shallow-water kelp forests to the deep sea.
Research programs at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) encompass the entire ocean, from the surface waters to the deep seafloor, and from the coastal zone to the open sea. The need to understand the ocean in all its complexity and variability drives MBARI's research and development efforts.