Cruise: Searching for New Species in the South Sandwich Islands

The closest human beings to the Research Vessel Falkor (too) during this expedition might be orbiting the Earth on the International Space Station. The South Sandwich Islands is one of the most remote island chains in the world. It is a volcanic archipelago created by the South American Plate subducting beneath the South Sandwich Plate. Situated between the Southern and Atlantic Oceans, these islands are part of a rich mosaic of tectonic forces that create geologic features such as hadal zone trenches, underwater volcanoes, and spreading centers. These features facilitate high levels of endemism, supporting species found nowhere else.

This Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census Flagship Expedition will be led by Dr. Michelle Taylor, president of the Deep-Sea Biology Society and Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex; her team will locate and describe new species. Dr. Jenny Gales will lead GoSouth, a collaboration between the University of Plymouth, GEOMAR, and the British Antarctic Survey; her team will survey volcanic flanks with ROV SuBastian to determine the impacts of volcanism and earthquake activity on marine ecosystems. The science teams will also seek out deep-sea volcanoes and venture into the 8000-meter-deep South Sandwich Trench, the most geographically isolated and coldest trench on Earth.

Person: Javier Cristobo

Javier Cristobo is a European PhD. in Marine Biology and a researcher at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO), Gijón Oceanographic Centre, in the specialty of benthic ecology. The main focus of interest is the Phylum Porifera in different aspects, including Taxonomy, Ecology, Sponge Grounds also the marine invertebrates, Deep Sea fauna, Antarctic research, vulnerable … Continued

Person: Rachel Downey

I am a polar and deep-sea marine biologist with 15 years’ experience in sponge taxonomy, biogeography, and seafloor image analysis. I am originally from the UK having previously worked at the British Antarctic Survey as a marine biologist, via Germany’s Senckenberg Natural History Museum as a sponge taxonomist, to Australia, where I am in the … Continued

Person: Jialing Cai

Jialing Cai is a marine biologist, underwater photographer, and science communicator from Chongqing, China. Her work focuses on exploring marine larval dispersal and planktonic ecosystems through macro photography in the open ocean at night. In 2023, she earned the prestigious title of Ocean Photographer of the Year and was invited by Ocean Census to join … Continued

Person: Oenone Scott

Nonny (Oenone) Scott is a PhD student at the University of Essex. Her research is focused on connectivity of invertebrates in the Southern Ocean, and she is currently working on larval dispersal models of octocorals in the Scotia Sea, with a goal to help improve our understanding of the connectivity of these vulnerable marine ecosystems.  … Continued

Person: Zhehao Hu

Zhehao is currently pursuing his M.Sc. in biology at the University of Hamburg, Germany. He previously specialized in molecular ecology, and has been working on the taxonomy of deep-sea isopods of the genus Acanthocope since last year, bringing his expertise to interdisciplinary research. His work evaluates species delimitation, phylogenetic history, and biogeography from various perspectives.  … Continued

Person: Andrea Verolino

Dr Andrea Verolino is a volcanologist who is currently working on volcano hazard-related aspects in Southeast Asia at the Earth Observatory of Singapore, where he is a Research Fellow. His research interests span from physical volcanology to planetary geology, but his main focus is on subaqueous volcanoes, particularly he tries to understand how the magma-water … Continued

Person: Corbyn Johannes

Corbyn Johannes is a doctoral researcher at the University of Plymouth, focusing on studying Antarctic turbidity currents, with particular attention to their causes,  characteristics, and significance within the global carbon cycle.  He holds an MPhys in Physics from the University of Southampton, alongside an MSci in  Applied Marine Science from the University of Plymouth. The … Continued

Person: Elin Thomas

Dr Elin Angharad Thomas is a deep-sea biologist and science communicator, currently working as Communications Manager for the Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative (DOSI). Elin also holds an Adjunct Research Fellow position with the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre at the University of Western Australia. Her research to date has focussed on the ecology, biogeography and conservation of … Continued

Person: Giulia La Bianca

Dr. Giulia La Bianca (pronounced: ˈdʒuːliə) is a benthic ecologist currently working at Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) in the UK. Her expertise lies in benthic ecology, deep-sea fauna identification, habitat suitability modelling, and assessing ecosystem services. At PML, she focuses on using artificial intelligence to accelerate species identification from underwater footage. Her work ensures high-quality … Continued