4K Highlights ~ Video Update

It sounds like something out of a fairytale: scenes of fantastical creatures - some floating, others firmly entwined within towering mineral chimneys that billow underwater "smoke." These are the very real ecosystems around the hydrothermal vents we were lucky enough to explore during Schmidt Ocean Institute's latest expedition. ROV SuBastian documented wonders including astounding geological … Continued

Ocean Worlds Beyond Earth

One of my favorite memories of sailing with Schmidt Ocean Institute was in 2016 when we were using the ROV SuBastian to explore volcanoes of the Mariana Arc and Backarc in the western Pacific. We live-streamed seafloor video from this amazing sulfur-rich underwater volcano called Daikoku back to shore, and we kept getting the question … Continued

Beautiful Unknowns ~ Video Update Week 3

Finding what you aren't looking for isn't always a bad thing! So far, the team has not found find more vents like the Lost City hydrothermal field, but they have discovered large high-temperature, black-smoker hydrothermal systems. These fields are massive and have bustling ecosystems, raising many questions that need answers. There is currently an international … Continued

Biology of Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents

Some of the most striking features of the deep sea are the amazing oases of life found at sites of hydrothermal venting. Elsewhere in the deep ocean, there is a low density of animals due to the fact that food is less abundant with depth, and thus, there is not enough energy to sustain a … Continued

When a Plan Comes Together ~ Video Update Week 2

The #LostCityVents team made a breathtaking discovery recently, and when a researcher says "We found something beyond what we could ever expect," you know it's worth paying attention. Using a combination of cutting-edge technology - including sonars on R/V Falkor (too) and autonomous underwater vehicles, CTD sampling, and ROV SuBastian - the team located black … Continued

Origins and Life: Going deep to study Earth’s tiniest organisms

Traducción al español disponible a continuación Written by Marc A. Fontánez Ortiz The deep sea is the largest ecosystem on Earth. It harbors a plethora of (bio)geochemical interactions, being the home to different life forms that range from shrimp to unicellular microorganisms. I am a geomicrobiologist who studies energy flow between water-rock-life interactions to understand … Continued

Starting the Expedition: Serpentinization on the Seafloor

Spanish Translation Below  The origins of this expedition – “Searching for Serpentinization-Driven Hydrothermal Activity on Oceanic Core Complexes of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge” – go back to the year 2000, when a talented team of marine geologists and oceanographers were surveying and exploring an oceanic core complex with the submersible Alvin at the intersection of the … Continued

After We Sample

An audience of hundreds – sometimes thousands – of people ashore watch the live-stream intensely as Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) dives and collects samples. Sometimes when collecting a sample, a researcher narrating the dive suggests that a sample might represent an undescribed (i.e., new-to-science) species. It can take years to formally describe a new species. … Continued

The Opening of the Gulf of California

Tectonic plates are in constant motion, slowly moving along the Earth’s mantle as hot magma circulates below. These slow-moving plates are responsible for the formation of the continents we know today as well as ocean basins. While most ocean basins take around 30 to 80 million years to form, the Gulf of California (GOC) formed … Continued

Designing the Future 2 – 4K ROV Highlights – Video Update

“Creating one new deep-sea instrument that can operate successfully in the field is hard enough to accomplish. This project took technology development to the next level and ultimately involved four different complex systems. I am proud to say after ten days at sea, these four pieces of equipment worked in concert with each other to … Continued