Like most deep-sea biologists, I have a large collection of decorated Styrofoam cups. A couple dozen line the bookshelf of my office, each displaying a rainbow of Sharpie colors. Each cup is painstakingly decorated with a cornucopia of deep-sea animals, equipment, and maps. Everything from giant squids to Alvin submersibles adorn the cups. I even have Cup-O-Noodles and New Orleans Daiquiri branded cups as part of the collection. Each cup is reminder of a deep-sea expedition and stands just 1-2 inches tall. At the surface, each of those cups was 90% air and 10% tiny polystyrene beads. After ea ..read more

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A great bit of writing and journalism at Wired on the avoidable Titan submersible incident. “A trove of tens of thousands of internal OceanGate emails, documents, and photographs provided exclusively to WIRED by anonymous sources sheds new light on Titan’s development, from its initial design and manufacture through its first deep-sea operations. The documents, validated by interviews with two third-party suppliers and several former OceanGate employees with intimate knowledge of Titan, reveal never-before-reported details about the design and testing of the submersible. They show ..read more

Tiger sharks are sort of generalist feeders. And by generalist, I mean they will pretty much eat anything. And by everything, I mean everything. On the more natural side of things, tiger sharks eat throughout the food web. One study found at least 192 different prey items in the stomach contents of tiger sharks from small shrimps and bivalves to various large whale species including sperm and humpback whales. Land animals aren’t safe either. Eight species of terrestrial mammals, including a blue duiker (small antelope), unidentified bats, an African porcupine, common mole rat as well as d ..read more

I have only seen a hydrothermal vent once, during Dive 73 aboard the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s Doc Ricketts. Unlike many deep-sea biologists, I have always been more interested in deep-sea mud than the flashy vents. However, seeing a hydrothermal vent was a major item on my bucket list. As I watched the monitor as we descend a 75-foot-tall chimney. Charcoal black to grey fluid is violently erupting from the top and several cracks along the chimney’s surface. You could see the shimmering sheen in the water, indicating that the temperatures were far above those of the surroundin ..read more

Between 1948 and 1961, barges laden with industrial waste, including high concentrations of once-ubiquitous agricultural insecticide, Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), were indiscriminately discharged into the Pacific Ocean. An estimated 100 tons of DDT contaminate the ocean floor off Palos Verdes. Decades after its ban, the insidious legacy of DDT , still haunts the depths off the coast of Southern California. A recent study has unearthed disturbing evidence of DDT’s persistent presence in deep-sea fish and sediments, shedding light on a silent threat lurking beneath the waves. The study ..read more

Guest post by Dr. Melissa Betters “They got it!” echoed shouts down the hallways of the Research Vessel Atlantis in Fall 2018. The whole science crew knew what it meant: The elusive polychaete worm, seen numerous times during our deep-sea dives at the Pacific Costa Rica Margin, had finally been captured. Now, it’s been formally described in PLoS One. The research cruise in question was one of three that surveyed the cold seeps off the coast of the Pacific Costa Rica Margin from 2017-2019. This region is a subduction zone – where one tectonic plate is subducting beneath another. This tectonic a ..read more

Guest post by Dr. Melissa Betters Are you afraid of the deep, dark ocean? If so, you’re not alone. Thalassophobia (fear of deep water) seems all too common these days from web articles titled “10 Bioluminescent Organisms That Better Cut That Freaky Sh*t Out Before I Call The Cops,” to sci-fi thrillers like “The Meg” (2018) to Tumblr posts like that of user jaclcfrost: “make no mistake i love the ocean with my whole heart but deep water terrifies me so much.. what’s goin on down there? nothing i want to be a part of.” Indeed, the deep ocean – aquatic, cold, dark – is about as opposite an enviro ..read more

Osedax worms, or the ‘bone eating’ worms are little soft sacks resembling snotty little flowers. The “bone devourer” is not quite accurate as the worms do not actually feed on the bone mineral, but rather the fats within the bone matrix.   It’s just the Osedax females that do the feeding … and have no mouth, anus, or gut. The females extend roots into the bones to tap the fats within.  With roots to delve into the bone, a trunk of main body, and a crown of respiratory organs extending from the trunk, the flower moniker is appropriate.  Perhaps that’s why one of the first named s ..read more

You know what your hump day needs? Some absolute stunning photos of deep-sea animals. Look at this one. Look at that one. You gotta get yourself some of these deep-sea animals. A team of scientists recently wrapped up a 40-day research voyage (jealous!) from the Salas y Gómez Ridge to Rapa Nui, commonly known as Easter Island. Situated off the coast of Chile, this ridge is teeming with biodiversity and is being considered for designation as a high-seas marine protected area. Led by Drs. Erin E. Easton from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and Javier Sellanes from the Universidad Catól ..read more