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This morning I was handed a small vial of water from the deepest reaches of the Tasman Sea (4800 meters deep, to be exact). So what, you ask?

Loihi seamount is an underwater, hydrothermal vent site that sends iron-rich water into the ocean in a plume.  In addition to the dissolved iron, the hydrothermal fluid also contains a lot of iron-rich particles. My job along with Mike is to collect these particles so they can be analyzed using a synchrotron light source. Although … Continued

The results from our Video Plankton Recorder (VPRII) continue to please researchers aboard the first Falkor shakedown cruise. “We made our daily stop for a CTD cast and a plankton net tow, and the VPR was redeployed easily in calm seas,” said Dr. Cabell Davis, the mission’s Chief Scientist. “With three successful plankton tows for … Continued

There are those who argue that predictability is the greatest gift of progress, the biggest merit of civilization. Our ability to explain nature through science makes the world and the universe predictable and understandable. That enables us to have a more informed and productive relationship with our natural environment and its resources. This is at … Continued

Andreas Novotny thought he would find Hemiaulus here. He has not. “It is what it is, which is fine,” he says. “What we need to do is figure out why.”  Andreas is a PhD. student and his research focuses in the symbiotic relationship between a kind of plankton, a Diatom called Rhizosolenia, and a Nitrogen-fixing Cyanobacteria, … Continued

The timing could not have been more perfect for this expedition, which has given the science team a glimpse of mixing activity in the central equatorial Pacific during strong El Niño conditions.

Unrelenting questions that press for a definitive, but elusive, answer are precisely the kind of questions that fuel Chief Scientist Joseph Montoya’s love for oceanography. He often goes to bed trying to solve the oceans’ latest riddle and wakes up the next morning knowing his mind was not idle. He might feel rested but is also … Continued

What comes to mind when you think of the ocean? Waves, vastness, blue, or the many things that it contains. You may picture dolphins or fish, if you really know your stuff you might even imagine microclines or currents. The scientific party onboard of R/V Falkor is a little different. When they look at the ocean, … Continued

Before the advent of modern oceanographic instrumentation, scientists possessed only rudimentary ways of exploring our oceans. Surface currents could be inferred from their effect on ship’s tracks, and from the net drift of floating objects released at one location and found much later at another, like a message in a bottle from another place. Tracking … Continued