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.
Feb 28 2013 - 10:18am
How many animals swim in the sea? It's not easy to count them all. To get a feel for the ocean's diversity, scientists, such as those involved in the Census of Marine Life, sail out on research cruises to collect and count as many animals as they can find! Shown here is a sample of zooplankton...
Quest for the Giant Squid
Nov 20 2009 - 5:17pm
Watch a Discovery video on Smithsonian squid expert Clyde Roper’s search for giant squid in Kaikoura Canyon off the coast of New Zealand. More about giant squid can be found in our Giant Squid featured story.
Jul 27 2011 - 12:11pm
Dr. Peter Auster gets ready for a dive to study the ecology of fish predators at Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Georgia.
Jun 7 2011 - 1:00pm
The Johnson-Sea-Link submersible reaches the ocean’s surface with a specimen of Keratoisis bamboo coral inside its collection box. Find out how ocean scientists study deep-sea corals in our Deep-sea Corals article.
Dec 8 2010 - 7:04pm
Students from Baiona, Spain surround the Scarlet Knight in front of the television cameras.
May 10 2010 - 6:22pm
Students in Monterey Bay share a microscope to get a closer look at plankton samples from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.
Jun 9 2011 - 9:23am
What happens to deep-sea coral samples after they are collected? In this image gallery, see some of the ways ocean scientists sort, measure, photograph, and study them. Learn more in the multimedia feature "Coral Gardens of the Deep Sea."  
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...
Jul 8 2011 - 10:25am
Have you ever seen a creature so unusual?  This fish (22 cm long) is called a sea toad and studying them requires luck and the opportunity to descend into the deep waters where they live.
A polar bear and her cub on the ice
Jun 28 2011 - 2:25pm
The Encyclopedia of Life and Atlantic Public Media bring us another installment of the podcast, One Species at a Time. In this podcast, host Ari Daniel Shapiro relates two close calls with polar bears. Listen as Heather Cray recalls how, dumped by a storm on a small Arctic island,...
Feb 17 2011 - 1:20pm
This over 2,000-year-old shipwreck in Mazotas, Cyprus, was discovered in 2007. The ship was loaded with wine from Chios, one of the most expensive and sought-after Greek wines in antiquity. The University of Cyprus, in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus and the THETIS...
Aug 31 2010 - 10:04am
Dr. Robert Ballard poses with an unmanned submersible, like the one he used when locating and exploring the wreck of the RMS Titanic. A veteran explorer, former U.S. Navy Commander, and professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, Ballard is a giant in deep-sea exploration.
Jul 29 2010 - 10:58pm
Using a deep-diving ROV, the crew aboard Oceana’s research vessel Ranger were surprised to discover large colonies of deep-sea white coral in the Western Mediterranean Sea in July 2010. Most of the Mediterranean’s deep-sea coral reefs are already gone as a result of destructive fishing techniques...
Mar 12 2011 - 7:33pm
Starksia blennies, small coral reef fish, have been well-studied for more than 100 years. But Smithsonian scientists discovered that what were thought to be three species of the fish are actually 10 distinct species from the Caribbean. Dr. Carole Baldwin, a Smithsonian zoologist and curator of...
Arctic Scientists at Work
Jan 10 2011 - 1:17pm
Arctic scientists study a range of marine animals – from large species like polar bears to the microscopic, like phytoplankton. The amount of phytoplankton at different depths can tell us about the amount of sunlight and food available in the Arctic waters. Learn more in the Under Arctic Ice photo...
Exploring Ocean Life with an Underwater Vehicle
Dec 16 2011 - 4:46pm
Studies along the Northwest Atlantic Ocean shelf break- the transition from continental shelf to slope- by researchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Rutgers University are revealing connections between physical processes in the ocean and the things that live there.