Log Post: Cabinet of Curiosity

I am Aly, and I am currently an Artist-at-Sea aboard R/V Falkor. My collaborator Shona Kitchen and I have worked with Brennan Phillips’ team at the University of Rhode Island to develop camera housings for DEEPi. The form of these housings is inspired by plastiglomerate, a new type of stone that is a mixture of … Continued

Log Post: Trialling New Technology at Sea

Already a few days into her latest fascinating voyage, R/V Falkor is on a mission to test exciting new technologies that will allow researchers to study deep-sea organisms in-situ – something which has never been done before. For the past two days, the team, which includes bioengineers, microroboticists and electrical engineers, have been preparing, installing … Continued

Log Post: Emerging technologies to explore and describe midwater biodiversity

Of all the Earth’s habitable zones, the deep midwater environment is probably the least understood. Much of deep-sea biology is focused on the seafloor, where a global community of researchers yield new discoveries on a consistent basis. In contrast, the massive expanse of ocean that lies between the surface and the bottom, or the ocean’s … Continued

Person: Oliver Wurl

Dr. Oliver Wurl is a scientist and head of the group “Processes and sensing of marine interfaces” at the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM) at the University of Oldenburg, Germany. His research interests include the air-sea interaction, sea surface, carbon cycling and aerosol chemistry, and using that knowledge to contribute … Continued

Log Post: Exploration and Exploitation: Coral Species and Deep-Sea Mining

The expanding reach of humankind has plunged far into the unknown, which is also home to the largest ecosystem on the planet. Throughout parts of the seafloor are untapped sources of rare earth metals including gold, silver and copper, and more importantly sulfide, zinc, manganese, and cobalt. These resources are necessary ingredients in manufacturing the … Continued

Person: Nicholas Yoshioka

Nicholas is currently an undergraduate sophomore at the University of Hawaii at Manoa majoring in global environmental science under SOEST (the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology). During his time at UH, he has interned with Shawn Murakawa to try and better understand the life of Hawaiian sea turtles in the pelagic areas … Continued

Person: Antonella Wilby

Antonella Wilby is a PhD student and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at the Contextual Robotics Institute, UC San Diego, and a National Geographic Explorer. Her current research focuses on the development of autonomous underwater robots and vision-based algorithms for mapping and exploration of ocean environments, with the ultimate goal of better understanding and … Continued

Person: Kyra Thompson

Kyra is a recent graduate from Hawaii Pacific University with a BS in Marine Biology. Although she originally grew up in a landlocked state, her passion for the ocean truly bloomed from the heart and took her thousands of miles away to the islands in order to to study science in college. During her time … Continued