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The deep sea is undoubtedly home to the weird and wonderful, but one of the strangest organisms of all is actually a single cell. During my first deep-sea expedition over ten years ago, we noticed lumpy masses scattered all over an otherwise barren seafloor. At first we thought these were sponges, but I later learned … Continued

 The Great Barrier Marine Park – it is unique. It is the only seascape like this on the planet. “Our duty here is to come in as scientists and understand the long-term history of the Great Barrier Reef over geological time: why it is here, how it got here. That gives us really important insights … Continued

In March I was busy preparing to join R/V Falkor in Exmouth for Leg 2 of the Illuminating Biodiversity of the Ningaloo Canyons voyage. A week before I was due to sail, the Covid-19 pandemic started causing havoc in Australia, and the Schmidt Ocean Institute had to proceed with caution to ensure that the Falkor … Continued

“I love ROVs because there is so much we haven’t discovered about the ocean… It is really hard to put an ROV in a new place and not discover something new because we have had so few human eyes on the ocean floor.” A new #ScienceStories video update featuring Antonella Wilby, currently based at the … Continued

My name is David Henderson and I am part of a team of engineers from the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, at the University of Sydney. Our job is to operate and maintain our Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) on board Falkor. This is Sirius, the largest AUV we operate. She is a twin hull, 260kg … Continued

“The Schmidt Ocean Institue’s surveys out here in the Coral Sea are rapidly transforming the Coral Sea Marine Park from being one of the least known and poorly characterized areas of Australia’s marine estate to one of the best mapped and best understood areas. This #VisioningCoralSea expedition video update takes us behind the scenes and … Continued

The Deep is known as “The Museum of Biodiversity,” as creatures that developed millions of years ago – far before what we see now in the shallows – still exist, they are just out of sight in these rarely changing habitats. A new #ScienceStories video featuring Jeremy Horowitz from JCU: James Cook University, Australia, created during the #VisioningCoralSea expedition. 

For a first-timer going on a marine survey, this voyage on RV Falkor in the Coral Sea Marine Park is a dream come true. Importantly, as a marine environmental modeller, this voyage is giving me first-hand experience of data acquisition and a much better understanding of the strengths and limitations of data that is acquired … Continued

Three years ago, I started my PhD aimed at overcoming knowledge gaps pertaining to the taxonomy and the evolutionary history of black corals. Black corals consist of a proteinaceous black skeleton (hence their name) making them different than hard corals that are made of calcium carbonate. With the taxonomy and evolutionary history of this coral … Continued