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A few days ago we invited anyone who was interested to ask Principal Investigator Dr Blair Thornton (University of Southampton) and the international engineering team on Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor questions about underwater robotics and our current expedition. The experts onboard are conducting research on dynamically changing environments like cold seeps with four different … Continued

It has been a magnificent journey. Being surrounded by the Pacific Ocean on all sides for 25 days has deepened my connection to our water planet. Whenever on deck studying the blues of sky and sea, I also took a few deep breaths and grasped a sense of scale that I can not appreciate on … Continued

As the CTD rises out of the water, we line up in the hallway, donning life jackets and ensuring all of our bottles are properly labeled and ready for samples. We watch Lead Marine Technician Leighton Rolley secure the CTD and wait for the signal that it is safe for us to enter the starboard … Continued

As an undergraduate student, Colleen Durkin had no idea what to specialize in, but looking at a seawater sample through a microscope during a field-trip to Friday Harbor Labs changed that forever. “I suppose I had used a microscope before, but I can’t remember it,” she shares. “All I know is that to this day, I … Continued

A few weeks before my Artist-at-Sea experience, the program coordinator emailed me to see if I would be interested in creating a painting for a panel on the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s ROV submersible named SuBastian. “Absolutely,” I thought. This was very exciting for me: what a rare opportunity to be one of the few artist … Continued

Every great ship needs a Holodeck. Not for entertainment, but for science. Star Trek‘s fictional Holodeck can create matter virtually (in our case, it would be scientific data) which can be seen, touched and interacted with. Unfortunately, real technology is not as advanced as we know it from TV, so for now we skip the touch. But … Continued

As this transit from Hawai’i to Fiji was my first time being at sea, I was very curious to experience the ship’s movement. Before boarding I was nervous about big swells and any kind of inclement weather causing sea sickness, but within hours of being onboard I overheard that we were expecting smooth seas ahead … Continued

Plankton are a miracle because they are made up mainly of protists which are single cells. Protists come in thousands of shapes and sizes ranging from microns to millimeters. They can have silicate scales, frustules or loricas. They can have pseudopods, flagella or cilia. They can live in colonies of many cells together, act as … Continued