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Exploring the Sea with Technology

Cutting-edge technology gives MBARI’s scientists new ways of looking at the ocean. Their engineers have developed instruments that can measure ocean depths to a fraction of an inch, bring deep-sea fish back to the surface alive and perform DNA analysis, all the while withstanding corrosive salt water, crushing pressure, and near-freezing temperatures.

One of the biggest challenges MBARI engineers have faced is that most of their deep-sea instruments run on batteries that need to be replaced frequently. Another challenge is that there is no easy way to communicate with instruments or robots located a mile or more below the sea surface. Light and radio waves don’t penetrate that deep and sounds often get fuzzy and distorted.

In the last decade, however, MBARI engineers have begun to solve these problems by connecting deep-sea instruments to special undersea cables. These cables supply power for scientific instruments and carry the data from these instruments back up to the surface or back to shore. “Cabled ocean observatories" like this are ushering in a new era of oceanography where researchers can monitor the deep sea twenty four hours a day in real time.

Other Technology

This fish trap, designed by MBARI, brings deep-sea fish back up to the surface alive. At MBARI, oceanographers and marine biologists work with engineers and machinists to create unique devices like this one.

Learn more on MBARI's website

Many marine biologists at MBARI study DNA and other genetic material from deep-sea animals to find out how they are related and how they have adapted to life in the depths.

Learn more on MBARI's website

MBARI Video Annotation and Reference System

Using MBARI’s Video Annotation and Reference System, researchers can search for virtually any animal or object captured in over 14,000 hours of video taken by MBARI’s remotely operated vehicles.

Learn more on MBARI's website

MBARI’s autonomous underwater vehicles are used to map the seafloor, collect data about ocean temperature, salinity, and chemistry, and to collect water samples. They are programmed at the sea surface and then released to follow a predetermined path through the ocean for up to 24 hours.

Learn more on MBARI's website

This “benthic rover,” about the size of a compact car, crawls along the seafloor taking photographs and measuring the amount of oxygen consumed by small organisms that live in the sediment. This will help researchers figure out how animals in the deep sea get enough food to eat.

Learn more on MBARI's website

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			Click for a detailed photo of the ROV Tiburon and its equipment.

			Visit the MBARI web site for more information about its research.

			Explore the Deep in our Auditorium The live images from the canyon are also instantly relayed by microwave to the aquarium as part of our daily "Exploring the Deep Canyon" auditorium program. Visit our Daily Events page for more information.

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