More about the research HERE.

Dive 503 – Diving to Desecheo Ridge
Date: April 18, 2023
Location: Desecheo Ridge, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 800 meters
Work Completed: Explored the lower ridge benthic cover while transiting up the Desecheo Ridge. Focused on measurements and collections at ca. 150-200 m.

Dive 504 – Sampling at Desecheo Ridge, Puerto Rico
Date: April 18, 2023
Location: Desecheo Ridge, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 186 meters
Work Completed: In this dive, we started at a depth of 800 m and explored the lower ridge benthic cover while transiting up the Desecheo Ridge. We focused on measurements and collections at ca. 150-200 m.

Dive 505 – Sampling at Desecheo Ridge, Puerto Rico
Date: April 19, 2023
Location: Desecheo Ridge, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 125 meters
Work Completed: In this dive, we started at a depth of 130 m and explored the Desecheo Ridge.

Dive 506 – Sampling at Desecheo Ridge, Puerto Rico
Date: April 19, 2023
Location: Desecheo Ridge, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 190 meters
Work Completed: In this dive, we started at a depth of 130 m and explored the Desecheo Ridge.

Dive 507 – Sampling at Desecheo Ridge, Puerto Rico
Date: April 20, 2023
Location: Desecheo Ridge, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 366 meters
Work Completed: In this dive, we started at a depth of 365 m and headed upslope exploring the Desecheo Ridge.

Dive 508 pt. 1 – Coral Sampling Encore – Desecheo Ridge, Puerto Rico
Date: April 20, 2023
Location: Desecheo Ridge, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 400 meters
Work Completed: The dive plan includes photogrammetry, SOLARIS measurements for superoxides, squeezer collections, sponge fragments collections, and grabbing eDNA and water samples.

Dive 508 pt. 2 – Coral Sampling Encore – Desecheo Ridge, Puerto Rico
Date: April 21, 2023
Location: Desecheo Ridge, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 400 meters
Work Completed: The dive plan includes photogrammetry, SOLARIS measurements for superoxides, squeezer collections, sponge fragments collections, and grabbing eDNA and water samples.

Dive 509 – Coral Sampling Encore – Desecheo Ridge, Puerto Rico
Date: April 21, 2023
Location: Desecheo Ridge, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 780 meters
Work Completed: For this dive, we went deeper down the slope of the Desecheo Ridge (~800 m) and transited up slope. The dive plan includes photogrammetry, SOLARIS measurements for superoxides, squeezer collections, sponge fragments collections, and grabbing eDNA and water samples.

Dive 510 – Birthday & Earth Day Mission: Exploring La Parguera
Date: April 22, 2023
Location: La Parguera, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 340 meters
Work Completed: This dive takes place at a new station, La Parguera. This region has a steep wall that is known for beautiful mesophotic reefs. The dive started just below the reef (~200 m) and transited up the wall to as shallow as comfortable (~45-50 m).

Dive 511 – Exploring La Parguera
Date: April 23, 2023
Location: La Parguera, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 80 meters
Work Completed: This dive stayed shallow (less than 100m) and conducted photogrammetry on coral, took superoxide measurements with Solaris, and collected lots of coral samples.

Dive 512 – More Exploring La Parguera
Date: April 23, 2023
Location: La Parguera, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 80 meters
Work Completed: This dive continues where Dive 511 left off: sampling the corals along the ridge.

Dive 513 pt. 1 – ROV SuBastian’s 7th Birthday at Esperanza Ridge
Date: April 25, 2023
Location: Esperanza Ridge, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 2090 meters
Work Completed: Happy Birthday to our favorite ROV! This dive explores a new station on the southeast corner of Puerto Rico at a location called Esperanza Ridge. One slope of this ridge was partially explored by the Okeanos several years ago where they found a diversity of coral and sponges.

Dive 513 pt. 2 – ROV SuBastian’s 7th Birthday at Esperanza Ridge
Date: April 26, 2023
Location: Esperanza Ridge, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 2090 meters
Work Completed: We continued exploring the Esperanza Ridge off of the South Eastern coast of Puerto Rico, searching for more coral samples.

Dive 514 pt. 1 – Esperanza Ridge
Date: April 26, 2023
Location: Esperanza Ridge, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 2090 meters
Work Completed: We continued exploring the Esperanza Ridge off of the South Eastern coast of Puerto Rico, searching for more coral samples.

Dive 514 pt. 2 – Esperanza Ridge
Date: April 26, 2023
Location: Esperanza Ridge, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 2090 meters
Work Completed: We continued exploring the Esperanza Ridge off of the South Eastern coast of Puerto Rico, searching for more coral samples.

Diving 515 – Diving at Whiting Bank
Date: April 27, 2023
Location: Whiting Bank, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 1250 meters
Work Completed: We dove at a new site, Whiting Bank off of the South Eastern coast of Puerto Rico, and searched for more coral samples to test for Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS).

Dive 516 – Continuing our Coral Search at Whiting Bank
Date: April 27, 2023
Location: Whiting Bank, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 1180 meters
Work Completed: We dove at a new site, Whiting Bank off of the South Eastern coast of Puerto Rico, and searched for more coral samples to test for Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS).

Dive 517 – SOLARIS-ing Corals at Whiting Bank
Date: April 28, 2023
Location: Whiting Bank, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 970 meters
Work Completed: We dove at a new site, Whiting Bank off of the South Eastern coast of Puerto Rico, and searched for more coral samples to test for Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS).

Dive 518 – SOLARIS-ing More Corals at Whiting Bank
Date: April 29, 2023
Location: Whiting Bank, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 945 meters
Work Completed: We dove at a new site, Whiting Bank off of the South Eastern coast of Puerto Rico, and searched for more coral samples to test for Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS).

Dive 519 – Testing Corals at Whiting Bank
Date: April 30, 2023
Location: Whiting Bank, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 550 meters
Work Completed: Back at Whiting Bank off of the South Eastern coast of Puerto Rico, searching for more coral samples to test for Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). We started shallow (400m) and worked our way downslope.

Dive 520 – Live at Whiting Seamount
Date: April 30, 2023
Location: Whiting Seamount, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 426 meters
Work Completed: We dove at Whiting Seamount on a different ridge that looks to be a fault scarp. We zig-zagged up the ridge, ending the dive at the top of the seamount.

Dive 521 – Summiting Whiting Seamount
Date: April 30, 2023
Location: Whiting Seamount, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 415 meters
Work Completed: Dive began by summiting Whiting Seamount, then worked our way downslope to where SOI Divestream 520 left off. Depth ranged from 80m at the summit to 350m.

Dive 522 – Our Last Dive at Whiting Bank
Date: May 1, 2023
Location: Whiting Bank, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 1930 meters
Work Completed: We returned to the deeper side of the slope, at around 2000-1500m, which is a region we had not explored yet. There was a region that has poor resolution on the map, so we completed a multibeam survey with R/V Falkor (too) to better target the area with the ROV survey.

Dive 523 – Our Last Dive at Whiting Bank
Date: May 2, 2023
Location: Whiting Bank, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 1770 meters
Work Completed: We returned to the deeper side of the slope, at around 2000-1500m, which is a region we had not explored yet. There was a region that has poor resolution on the map, so we completed a multibeam survey with R/V Falkor (too) to better target the area with the ROV survey.

Dive 524 – Our Last Dive at Whiting Bank – Take Three
Date: May 2, 2023
Location: Whiting Bank, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 1725 meters
Work Completed: We returned to the area of our last transect to finish it after dealing with the photomultiplier tube (PMT) issues in the SOLARIS instrument.

Dive 525 – South-West of Vieques
Date: May 3, 2023
Location: Southwest of Vieques, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 1570 meters
Work Completed: Our first dive of this location.

Dive 526 – South-West of Vieques
Date: May 4, 2023
Location: Southwest of Vieques, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 1300 meters
Work Completed: Our second dive of this location, resuming where we left off: at Waypoint #1.

Dive 527 – South-West of Vieques
Date: May 4, 2023
Location: Southwest of Vieques, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 500 meters
Work Completed: On this dive, we hope to discover a mesophotic reef as this site has never been explored before!

Dive 528 – South-West of Vieques
Date: May 5, 2023
Location: Southwest of Vieques, Atlantic Ocean off Puerto Rico
Estimated Maximum Depth: 266 meters
Work Completed: On this dive, we hope to discover a mesophotic reef as this site has never been explored before!