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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

Our exploration of the Ningaloo Canyons sees us return with amazing new discoveries and an abundance of data. Working with the amazing team from the Western Australian Museum (led by Dr. Nerida Wilson) provided me with the opportunity to gain valuable knowledge on deep sea marine life from experts in the field. All in all, … Continued

This expedition to explore the deep blue canyons off the Ningaloo coast has provided me with an opportunity that I will never forget – I will keep close to my heart the experience of working as part of the team on the R/V Falkor. The marine beauty hidden deep within the ocean canyons has been … Continued

Greetings from Australia! My name is Georgia Nester and I am one of the Student Opportunity Participants on the R/V Falkor for the March 2020 research cruise: Illuminating the biodiversity of the Ningaloo Canyons. This project will form part of my PhD ‘Monitoring blue biodiversity: examining diversity patterns in oceanic environments using environmental DNA’. The … Continued

Now that the departing science team is all home safely, our thoughts turn toward the next stages of our work. You might remember in an earlier blog we spoke of the timelines involved in carrying out such an expedition. First there is the long planning phase, and then the expedition itself, which is an intense, … Continued

While the ROV SuBastian glides above the seafloor, scientists and observers eagerly wait for the next fish, coral, or (particularly in the case of this survey) interesting rock to appear. In between there are often large expanses of seemingly barren sediment. Looking closely, however, we can often see a variety of markings in the sediment. … Continued

When my supervisor Dr Zoe Richards called me into her office and asked if I had heard of the R/V Falkor my eyes lit up. “Yes, of course, I’ve heard of R/V Falkor.” This brief conversation is what sparked the beginning of an opportunity that I could only imagine to come true in the later … Continued

Submarine canyons are dramatic topographic features that connect shallow continental shelves to deep ocean basins and create marine hotspots due to their unusual characteristics. They are highly productive zones that support an astonishing diversity of marine life within their depths. Perth Canyon is no exception, and has long been known to attract large aggregations of … Continued

Ship time for this amazing expedition exploring the mysterious depths of Western Australia’s Ashmore Reef has finished up, so this blog is about what we know – and what we do not know – about this biodiversity hotspot. Where is Ashmore Reef Marine Park? Ashmore Reef is just one of many isolated reefs on the … Continued

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