Search Results for Ningaloo


Log Post: The Journey Before the Expedition

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

Log Post: Perth Canyon – a marine hotspot in an ocean desert

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

Log Post: Ashmore Reef – History and Recovery

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

Log Post: Xenophyophores

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

Log Post: Science expeditions in the time of COVID19

The news came suddenly but was not unexpected. Our month-long science voyage on Australia’s largest research vessel, Investigator, was cancelled due to ever-tightening restrictions as the COVID19 crisis escalated around the world. Together with my close colleague Jody Webster at the University of Sydney, we had been planning this expedition to the northern Great Barrier … Continued

Log Post: Mapping and Imaging Cape Range Canyon

In our daily lives we often take maps for granted. Thanks to modern technology, maps are literally available at our fingertips, allowing us to plan our travel, map elevation profiles along our running or cycling routes, and reveal the shape of the landscape. For the oceans, however, maps are not as readily available. Only 25 … Continued

Log Post: Sampling, preserving, documenting, and always learning…

The opportunity to be part of the biological sampling team has opened my eyes to the differing documentation methods used for differing deep-sea taxa. From the various ways to handle the specimens once brought back to the deck by the ROV or fish traps, to the differing approaches, we use to preserve samples and the … Continued

Person: Jim Falter

Jim Falter was born in Sleepy Hollow, New York and grew up in the outer suburbs of New York City.  He attended college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology earning a BS in Civil and Environmental Engineering with a minor in chemistry.  After repeatedly crossing the Charles River over several New England winters, he decided … Continued

Log Post: The Never-ending Question: What is it?

“What is it?” This is a fundamental question that appears obviously simple to ask, but quite often is painstakingly difficult to answer. How do we know what something is? Generally, this is done by comparing it with other, similar animals that have been identified. It can be hard to appreciate how many other similar animals … Continued

Person: Andrew Heyward

Andrew is a marine biologist whose research on reefs, beginning with a PhD at James Cook University, has taken him to tropical locations worldwide since the 1980s. His current work, within the AIMS Sustainable Use of NW Marine Ecosystems team, is divided between studies of coral reproduction and exploratory surveys to uncover little studied coastal … Continued