Beneath the Waves - Seamount Blogs
Peruse our blog posts about seamounts in Californian waters and beyond!
Modeling Can Help Us Explore—and Save—Marine Life on Underwater Mountains, According to a New Scientific Report
Modeling Can Help Us Explore-and Save-Marine Life on Underwater Mountains, According to a New Scientific Report [Seattle, WA] Marine Conservation Institute announces a new scientific study detailing the need to protect biodiverse and sensitive deep-water ecosystems along the Salas y Gómez and Nazca ridges, seamount chains off the Pacific coasts of…
Modeling Mountains: How Species Modeling Could Save the High Seas
Far off the South American coast lie submerged mountain ridges that stretch nearly 2,000 miles along the seafloor. While these seamounts are deep, remote, and mysterious, habitat modeling offers insight into what animals live in these biodiversity hotspots. Our Marine Biogeographer Dr. Sam Georgian discusses a new publication detailing how cutting-edge species distribution models are…
Magnetic Signatures & Singing Stages: the mysterious connection between whales, sharks, and seamounts
By Morgane Bouvet, Seamounts Intern Many of our blogs are now available for listening! Tune in weekly for the audio experience. On the bottom of the deep ocean lie seamounts, massive underwater volcanoes that are largely unexplored, and generally absent of marine protections or management. Most seamounts are located in areas beyond national jurisdiction; also…
Ten Triumphs from 2020
In a year of bleak headlines, here are our favorite newsworthy highlights to rekindle your hope for the ocean in 2021 No doubt about it: this has been a year of exhausting news. From the ongoing global pandemic to nerve-wracking threats to marine protections both globally (such as the Chinese fishing fleet amassed just outside…
Inside the Fight to Save Underwater Volcanoes
Featured image: An orange basket star covers a Picasso sponge at Davidson Seamount, California. Image courtesy of NOAA and MBARI. The deep sea harbors the greatest number of species and ecosystems on Earth. Within this vast realm, the dazzling submerged volcanoes called seamounts are among the most diverse places of all. Scientists have long recognized that…
Call of the Deep: Exploring the Wonderful, Wacky Deep Sea
Featured Picture: Staff scientist Samuel Georgian takes a turn piloting the ROV Beagle (Marine Applied Research and Exploration) during an expedition off the coast of California. The Last Frontier “There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath…” -Herman Melville…
Zombie Worms and Friendly Stars: How Deep-Sea Symbiosis (Friends with Benefits) Allows Species to Thrive in a Challenging Environment
Featured Image: Octopus Cluster, Davidson Seamount. Credit: Ocean Exploration Trust/National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. The deep sea is a harsh place to live. Lacking the sunlight-fueled productivity that drives shallow-water food webs, the deep sea is extremely limited by available food, leading to slow growth rates, low reproduction, and a reduced ability to recover from disturbances.…
If not now, when? Conserving Seamounts on a Global Scale
Seamounts are massive underwater volcanoes that occur across the planet. They attract and support large numbers of animals including fish, sharks, sea turtles, seabirds, and marine mammals at the surface and shelter an incredible array of deep-sea life, including cold-water corals and sponges that build crucial structures, or ‘homes’, for large amounts of marine life on the bottom. These habitats are the ‘old-growth forests’ of the ocean – they are long-lived, slow growing, and extremely slow to recover following disturbance from activities like bottom trawling or seabed mining. Of the 10,000 plus seamounts known to exist, only around 10% are protected from some type of destruction. Marine Conservation Institute has a campaign to protect the 60 seamounts off the coast of California and is working with partners to protect many more around the world.
The Peaks and Troughs of California Seamounts
Featured Image: An orange basket star covers a yellow Picasso sponge at Davidson Seamount, approximately 75 miles off the California coast. Courtesy of NOAA. Seamounts Are Oases of Life Seamounts are found all across the world’s oceans, acting as small oases of life dotting the otherwise sparse deep seafloor. These massive underwater volcanoes provide ecologically…
Travel to the Deep Sea: Two Multimedia Journeys
At the beginning of July, Marine Conservation Institute invited our supporters to voyage to the deep sea…from the comfort of the living room. Our first-ever webinar was a huge success, and we’re pleased to share footage of it with those of you who didn’t get a chance to register for the live event! Travel with…
