Exploration

LATEST TODAY'S CATCH

Searching for Crustaceans in the Deep Sea

Searching for Crustaceans in the Deep Sea

May 16, 2013 - 9:04AMIn this video Smithsonian research zoologist Dr. Martha Nizinski takes viewers with her as she searches for crustaceans in the deep sea. She's particularly interested in finding squat lobsters, which despite their name, are...
Feb 28, 2013 - 10:18AM
How many animals swim in the sea? It's not easy to count them all. To get a...
Jan 29, 2013 - 11:19AM
Cooks Bay in Moorea is one of the places that researchers are scouring in...

SPOTLIGHT

Biodiversity in the Baltic Sea

In the spring of 2011, a research crew from Oceana spent two months in the brackish Baltic Sea. The Baltic faces...
The Baltic Sea faces challenges from pollution, algae blooms, over fishing, and invasive species.
The Titanic Wrecksite
Apr 13 2010 - 11:49am
On her maiden voyage the Royal Mail Ship Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic just before midnight on April 14th, 1912.  Dr. Robert Ballard first discovered the ship's wreckage in 1985.  Nearly twenty years later, in a look-don't-touch mission, Dr. Ballard and a team of...
Mar 26 2012 - 12:00am
A deep-sea octopus wraps itself around a submersible’s robotic arm 2,300 meters (7,546 feet) down in the Gulf of Mexico. "Most octopuses will let you get close, maybe even touch them, but normally they'll try to run once the manipulator gets close," said Bruce Strickrott, pilot of the submersible...
Nov 27 2012 - 9:51am
Researchers with the Smithsonian's Deep Reef Observation Project (DROP) collected this sea toad, Chaunax pictus, off the coast of Honduras in 2011. The team is trying to collect sea toads from around the Caribbean to better understand the group's genetic diversity and distribution.
Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
Smithsonian Zoologist Dr. Clyde Roper (rear) and museum specialist Mike Sweeney examine the mantle of a dead giant squid. Everything we know about giant squid comes from studying specimens found washed up on beaches, floating in the ocean, or caught in a fishing net.
Whalefish Swimming in the Ocean
Nov 8 2010 - 11:50am
Marine biologists discover a whalefish -- an incredibly rare deep-sea fish -- swimming in the ocean in this video. Because it is so dark where they live, females have well-developed sensory pores, called the lateral line system, running up and down the sides of their bodies to sense vibrations in...
Jan 6 2011 - 10:48am
Ice divers Katrin Iken (left) and Elizabeth Siddon are about to descend through a hole in the Arctic ice and into the frigid world below.
Jul 26 2010 - 6:21pm
Melissa Frey, Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) Rubenstein Fellow, examines a Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas) on a chilly day in Sidney, British Columbia. In addition to holding an EOL Fellowship, Melissa is a Research Associate at the Royal BC Museum, where she continues to engage in taxonomic studies.
Apr 29 2010 - 6:05pm
Jacques Cousteau once said, “When you dive, you begin to feel like an angel." It’s true. When a diver dons a tank and slips into the water, the noisy clatter of the world disappears and the sensation of weightlessness takes over. The unrestrained expanse of blue water. The dazzling rainbow of...
Jan 26 2010 - 11:45am
NOAA’s New Millennium Observatory (NeMO) was set up to study geologic, chemical, and biologic interactions along the mid-ocean ridge system. Learn more about NeMO and watch a video about underwater volcanoes.
Aug 9 2011 - 12:00pm
Ever since fourth grade I’ve wanted to explore the creatures and landscapes of the deep ocean in a submersible. It took awhile, but I finally got my chance this summer as part of the Deep Reef Observation Project (DROP).
Dec 8 2010 - 7:17pm
The robotic underwater glider Scarlet Knight crossed the Atlantic over the course of several months in 2009.
Jul 27 2011 - 11:49am
Nine years ago I was invited by a colleague to join a research team investigating deep-sea coral habitats. I was asked to examine the invertebrates associated with these ecosystems. After my first look, I was hooked! I was fascinated by the sheer beauty and complexity of these deep-sea environments...
Jul 27 2011 - 10:56am
Two events made me passionate about deep-sea corals. One was my first submarine dive in a deep-sea coral bed off the Hawaiian island of Oahu. There was an incredibly lush community of corals and associated invertebrates that were not well known, let alone understood. A couple of years later, I...
Jan 6 2011 - 10:56am
Ice divers use a quadrat to study the density of creatures living on the underside of Arctic ice floes. A quadrat is a standardized square used to take sample measurements that allow researchers to get an accurate estimate of the number of particular animals living in a larger space. 
Blue Water Diving with WHOI
Jul 15 2011 - 4:51pm
"Inside the Open Ocean: Blue Water Diving" produced by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), describes a specialized diving technique that lets biologists study the ocean's most fragile beings--soft, transparent animals such as jellyfish that are crushed by traditional tools such as plankton...
Welcome to the Moorea Biocode Project
Apr 21 2010 - 11:28am
Scientists journey to the isolated island of Moorea on a quest to catalog every life form big enough to pick up with tweezers—from mountaintop to seafloor. Get up close and personal with researchers in the field and see how they combine high-tech equipment and old-fashioned elbow grease to tackle...