Schmidt Ocean

ROV pilots recorded this living disco ball (ctenophore) at 1,292 m. The #SamplingGap sci team traveled to Romanche Fracture Zone, a 950-km transform fault in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, searching for (& finding) biodiversity hotspots & Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems. 🪩🪩🪩

#SamplingGap highlights: An international science team collected the first visual observations of the Romanche Fracture Zone — a 950-km transform fault zone along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. youtu.be/KdJ77nVM6MA?si…

Commonly known as rattails, grenadiers have large blue eyes that can spot flickers of bioluminescence. They can also smell decaying organic matter & use their whisker-like chin barbels to detect tiny crustaceans and worms wriggling along seafloor. #SamplingGap, 1,580 & 3,326 m

To vanish: distract.

When danger is suspected, squid produce a large cloud of squidish-shaped ink called a pseudomorph, which literally translates to “false form." While the predator searches, the cunning squid evades capture.

#SamplingGap expedition

🪸A coral forest in the deep! 🪸
#SamplingGap sci team documented lush ecosystems along Romanche Fracture Zone, an active fault system along world’s longest underwater mountain range: the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Until this expedition, the area was widely thought to host very little.