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Falkor’s destination on this research cruise is a remote location known as Scott Reef, nearly 300 km north of the Western Australia coast. Sitting on the edge of the continental shelf, these atolls or reef structures encircle lagoons resembling misshaped rings rising into a blue sky. Rings of depth These rings of reef rise from … Continued
Even docked, the water rushing under Falkor looks like a powerful river. One Broome local described it as the rhythmic cycle of the ocean breathing, but it seems like seriously heavy breathing to me. The tides here are unlike any I have ever seen; growing and falling over 10 meters as we prepare for the cruise. … Continued
Scott Reef may be extremely remote—some 400 kilometers north from Broome in the Timor Sea, but now anyone can view the reef and sea floor on their phone, iPad or computer. On Schmidt Ocean Institute’s March-April research cruise, the team, led by Dr. Oscar Pizarro from the University of Sydney’s Australian Centre for Field Robotics, … Continued
Yesterday, research vessel Falkor arrived in Broome, North Western Australia under clear skies and calm seas. Despite the nice weather, mobilizing for this cruise was anything but easy. When dealing with king tides of up to 10 meters, docking a 272 ft. vessel and loading equipment can be challenging. The science team and crew had … Continued
Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor to host coordinated robotics expedition studying remote coral reefs in the Timor Sea In a first of its kind study, an international research team onboard Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor will conduct a data gathering expedition using coordinated groups of underwater robotics. The team, led by Dr. Oscar Pizarro … Continued
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) like Sirius and gliders are powerful oceanographic tools that can help scientists obtain seafloor images and other types of data. Currently on the Coordinated Robotics cruise, Dr. Oscar Pizarro and his team are doing just that. A picture is worth a thousand data points Underwater imagery is a collaborative process used for … Continued
A recent blog explained new efforts at Schmidt Ocean Institute to make the data collected aboard R/V Falkor as easily and openly accessible as possible. One of those efforts was the development of a new “data dashboard” Falkor status page, which went live this week. This is a step forward for Schmidt Ocean Institute in … Continued
After 12 days at sea, we are nearing the end of the first deep exploration of Perth Canyon. Although it has long been known that a submarine canyon exists at our doorstep, this was the first detailed exploration using state-of-the-art mapping systems and ROV technology, which unveiled the magnificence of an ancient canyon the size … Continued
One of the main goals of this expedition was to explore the diversity of deep sea corals in Perth Canyon and to collect a variety of specimens for later geochemical analysis in the laboratory. The skeletons of deep sea corals are of high interest to scientists because their geochemical composition provides a record of how … Continued
