CRUISES

From June 2023 to January 2024 we embarked on an ambitious expedition to study the diversity of deep-sea life across the vast abyssal plains of the Pacific Ocean.   

In collaboration with Inkfish, the expedition onboard the RV Dagon was comprised of six 3-week legs. Half of the legs crossed between the West coast of America and Hawaii at three different latitudes, and the other 3 crossed between Hawaii and Tahiti at three different longitudes traversing 20,667nautical miles.

Expedition Summary Legs 1 - 6 June 2023 to January 2024

373,732 km2 of seafloor maps (roughly the same size as Japan). 

123 scientific lander deployments occurred across 40 sites. 

1,209,630 m of data on the depth, temperature and salinity 

5 submersible transects 

These combined data will allow the scientific team to statistically investigate large scale patterns of species distribution at abyssal depths and how this is controlled by factors such as depth, temperature, habitat type, geomorphology, food supply from the surface, longitude/latitude and distance from shore. The scale of this expedition, at abyssal depths, has seldom been attempted before.

Expedition Team 

Chief Scientists - Alan Jamieson, Heather Stewart, Todd Bond and Jess Kolbusz

Expedition Scientists - Megan Cundy, Melanie Stot, Jenny Wainwright, Yakup Niyazi and Devin Harrison.