An international team of scientists spent two weeks exploring deep waters off the coast of Chile. They set out to characterize the microbial and macrofaunal communities surrounding the Atacama Trench. The researchers observed incredible biodiversity, collected samples for further study, and located Chile’s deepest and most northern cold seeps. At 2836 meters deep, the seeps … Continued
Searching for tiny bubbles of methane percolating from the seafloor in the deep Ocean takes a dedicated team of scientists and engineers, a robotic guide, and a healthy dose of patience and persistence. During the #AtacamaTrenchAncients expedition, an international team of scientists searched for and found the deepest methane seep documented off the coast of … Continued
Dr. Armando Azua-Bustos of the Centro de Astrobiologíca has studied the Atacama Desert for the last decade and led the #AtacamaTrenchAncients expedition to explore the deep waters adjacent to it. When we think of life in the Ocean, we imagine octopuses, whales, and other charismatic megafauna. Still, in reality, the vast majority of life in … Continued
Traducción al español a continuación Ten to 30 million species are estimated to exist on our planet, yet only ~1 million of these have been formally described. These estimates do not include the vast majority of microbial life, let alone how microbes interact with animals. A major goal of scientific discovery is to understand not … Continued
Traducción al español a continuación In addition to the biologists studying octopus, the science party on the Falkor (too) includes a geophysicist (me) and a hydrogeologist (Dr. Rachel Lauer). Our role is to study what is happening beneath the seafloor to understand better the “plumbing” that moves fluids into and out of the ocean crust, … Continued
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
“Establishing ecological baselines in the deep sea allows us to track changes over time and better understand the consequences of human actions,” said Chief Scientist Dr. Lisa Levin, a professor of biological oceanography at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Check out some of the magnificent sights documented by ROV SuBastian during this expedition. The goal … Continued
“Our goal is to learn about the different types of animal and microbial communities that occur off Southern California. We’re actually in exploration mode: many of these areas have not been visited or studied before. Some of them have not even been mapped accurately.” Take a behind-the-scenes look into the #BiodiverseSCB expedition in this video.
The WaterWord: Authigenic Definition: Although some people are born with a wanderlust, wanting to travel all over, some seem to be ready made homebodies. And rocks that are authigenic are the homebodies of geology. Authigenic means that rock formed where it is currently located. That’s in contrast to rocks that form from materials that were … Continued
The WaterWord: Methanogenesis Definition: Anytime you see the word “genesis,” you’re looking at the beginning of something, and methanogenesis is no exception. It refers to the creation of methane by a specific set of microbes (microscopic organisms) that produce methane as a byproduct of digesting their food. Etymology: Methane comes from the French word methylene, itself made … Continued
