It’s often said that the deep sea is full of scary monsters. Take one of the most famous denizens of the deep—the vampire squid. 

Its dark color and cloaked arms conjure images of Hollywood horror movies. But these are both important adaptations that help Vampyroteuthis survive in the ocean’s twilight zone—dark color offers camouflage, and that webbing reveals fleshy spines for defense against predators. 

In our explorations of the depths of Monterey Bay, we’ve learned that life in the deep sea isn’t weird or scary, it’s wonderful! We’ve recorded nearly 28,000 hours of deep-sea video and logged millions of observations of animals and habitats. But sifting through all that video data takes time. We’re facing a data deluge—we’re collecting more images and video than we can analyze. 

A pair of collaborative initiatives led by MBARI are leveraging artificial intelligence to help alleviate this bottleneck. FathomNet is an open-source image database providing the tools to train computer machine-learning algorithms to recognize animals and objects in underwater imagery. Ocean Vision AI will engage gamers to help improve machine-learning models. Together, these two projects will mobilize a community of experts and enthusiasts to use AI to transform ocean exploration.

The deep sea is at a crossroads. Understanding the ocean and its inhabitants is more urgent than ever. Follow @FathomNet and @OceanVisionAI to learn how you can help. 

For the love of the deep,

The MBARI team

What are these mysterious apparitions? When spooked by a predator, a squid may make a quick escape, leaving behind a shroud of ink. This decoy is used as a distraction so the squid can jet to safety. Their ink shapes take on many forms—clouds, streams, dots, ropes, and more. These animal look-alike shapes are known as pseudomorphs. Whether the squids are intentionally mimicking other animals, we don’t know yet, but here are some of our favorite pseudomorphs. As we explore the ocean, we continue to learn more about the animals in the mysterious midnight waters far below. Dive in. 

Last month, a team of MBARI researchers joined an international research expedition aboard the Korea Polar Research Institute (KOPRI) icebreaker Araon to study a remote part of the Arctic Ocean. MBARI provided state-of-the-art underwater robots to study the seafloor along the southern edge of the Arctic. These robots are helping MBARI researchers and our collaborators investigate how thawing submarine permafrost is changing the seafloor in this remote area. Learn more.