As we turn the corner to a new year, we reflect on a year of continued ocean exploration and discovery. 2021 brought many challenges, but exploring our big, blue backyard filled us with inspiration, awe, and wonder when things felt tough. 

By leveraging autonomous robotics, we pieced together the role of the deep sea in Earth’s climate and surveyed the biodiversity of marine organisms from the genetic fingerprints they leave behind. 

We navigated best practices to sustain our operations at sea—an invaluable part of our work to understand a changing ocean—while keeping our team healthy and safe. Cameras aboard our remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) gave us a glimpse into life deep beneath the ocean’s surface. We recorded some captivating and extraordinary moments in the deep sea this past year. A gelatinous giant, a favorite fish, and even an ancient fossil—what will we find next? 

As we continue to explore the largest and least known habitat on Earth—the ocean—we promise to share our discoveries with you. We look forward to the opening of the Into the Deep exhibition with our education and outreach partner, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, next spring and the chance to come face-to-face with bloody-belly comb jellies, bubblegum corals, and Japanese spider crabs.

Until then, see you on the water,

As the world began to bounce back from a devastating pandemic, MBARI’s research vessels continued our sea-going work to understand the largest living space on Earth. Our ROVs had some remarkable encounters while exploring the ocean’s inky depths this year. From rare deep-sea fishes and giant jellies to adorable octopuses and twinkling squids, these fascinating finds underscore the dazzling diversity of life in the deep sea. Join us for a look back at highlights from our research these past 12 months. Watch here.

The sheer expanse of the deep sea and the technological challenges of working in an extreme environment make deep-water ecosystems difficult to study. By building on 25 years of engineering innovation, MBARI has developed a solution for long-term monitoring of the abyssal seafloor: Benthic Rover II. A new study published in Science Robotics details the development and proven long-term operation of this rover. The information gathered by Benthic Rover II at Station M has helped scientists understand how carbon cycles from the surface to the seafloor—data fundamental to understanding the impacts of climate change on the ocean. Dive in. 

Observing the complex and varied diversity of life in the sea is exceedingly difficult. We have incomplete knowledge of the number of species that inhabit the ocean, their abundance, distribution, and variability over time in response to changing environmental conditions. ⁠The Marine Biodiversity Observation Network, or MBON, is an ambitious program that launched in 2014 with the goal of enhancing our understanding of life in the ocean from local to global scales.⁠ A special issue of Oceanography published this month shares findings from MBON demonstration projects in Florida, Monterey Bay, Santa Barbara, and the Arctic. Read more.
(Image: Kevin Raskoff, Hidden Ocean 2005)