The Deep-Sea Podcast
A couple of deep-sea scientists talk everything deep sea! Interesting facts, recent news, myth-busting and interviews with the most interesting people we know.
Listen on:
Episodes
Saturday Jul 02, 2022
Saturday Jul 02, 2022
https://www.armatusoceanic.com/podcast/025-biolum
Sorry that this episode isn’t the perfectly polished jewel that this show usually is. Thom’s family got a visit from both COVID and chickenpox so there hasn’t been the time or energy to edit as well as he usually does. But we couldn’t abandon you without an episode this month as some great stuff is still covered.
Last episode we leaned about the pelagic zone, the largest habitat on earth, a boundless 3D space where enormous migrations take place. We learned that this isn’t a world of darkness but rather one of biological light, where bioluminescence is used to attack, to defend and to communicate. While producing your own light may seem alien to us, it is likely the most common form of communication on the planet.
To learn more about this world we speak with Edie Widder, who has studied bioluminescence for her whole career and used the same adaptations found in the animals to design her own equipment. She developed the Eye in the Sea, a camera system invisible to most deep-sea animals, and a lure which emulated a bioluminescent jellyfish, the e-jelly. The gear worked extremely well and along with a lot of behaviours observed for the first time this also captured the first footage of the giant squid, Architeuthis dux.
In recent news we talk about how plate tectonics impact our climate, what we can learn from the evolution of cave animals and generating power from the thermocline. We hear from a listener about their bigfin squid archive. Larkin drops by to tell us what a ‘Tron Dolphin’ and Don Walsh tells us why those same Tron Dolphins are a nuisance to submarines.
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own comments on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
We’d love to actually play your voice so feel free to record a short audio note!
We are also on
Twitter: @DeepSeaPod, @ArmatusO
Facebook: ArmatusOceanic
Instagram: @deepsea_podcast, @armatusoceanic
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Check out our podcast merch!
Glossary
Bioluminescence – Biologically generated light
Cenozoic era – 50 million years ago when the earth started cooling
Cretaceous hothouse – 145-66 million years ago where temperatures were 10°C
Deep Worker – a small, single person sub
Electronic jellyfish – A bioluminescent bait
Esca – The lure on anglerfish
Eye in the sea – A red light illuminated camera with a electronic jellyfish as bait
Fermi bubbles – Listen to the end
Magnapinna – The genus of the bigfin squid
Marine snow – The biological material (bodies, poop and shells) singing into the deep sea
Moribund – Something that is dying and cannot be saved
Olm – A type of blind cave salamander
Photomultiplier – Tech that boosts very weak sources of light
Promachoteuthis – The genus of squid that was seen on Edie’s camera system
Squid jig – A lure used to fish for squid
Stoplight fish - Deep-sea dragonfishes of the genus Malacosteus that can both see and produce red light
Thermocline – layer of sudden temperature change in the sea
Tubeshoulder – Deep-sea fish with a specialised organ that squirts bioluminescent material
Wasp suit – A deep-sea diving suit
Links
Mötley Crüe - Hooligan's Holiday
Video
Spotify
Finding the Samule B Roberts, deepest wreck.
Tyler Greenfield on Twitter
Alien species invasion of deep-sea bacteria into mouse gut microbiota
Plate tectonics and climate
Paper
Blind cave animal evolution
Power generation from deep, cold water
Magnapinna Archive
Edith (Edie) Widder
Wikipedia
ORCA
Ted Talk
Cookie-cutter shark paper
Below the Edge of Darkness
Larkin’s YouTube channel, Instagram and TicTok
Credits
Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel
Logo image
Public domain images
Holder, Charles Frederick (1892) Along the Florida Reef, New York City, NY: D. Appleton and Company, p. 263
Jordan, David Starr (1907) Fishes, New York City, NY: Henry Holt and Company
Friday Jun 03, 2022
Friday Jun 03, 2022
https://www.armatusoceanic.com/podcast/024-pelagic
We have a confession to make. We talk a big game about how we are busting myths, tackling deep-sea tropes and showing the deep ocean as it really is… but we have been guilty of one of the big ones. The deep sea is not just the bottom! Most of the deep sea, in fact, most of the habitat of this planet is the huge open 3D environment of open water or ‘pelagic’ water. In this staggering volume the planets largest migration takes place twice a day. Animals are locked in an evolutionary arms race, using their own light to deceive and trick. Finding a meal is rare, finding a mate is rare and life is without boundaries. These factors have led to some truly wild evolution.
We also tackle a couple of listener questions: Whatever happened to the word ‘nictoepipelagic’ which seems to have vanished from scientific writing? We also discuss parasites in the deep sea, how can they find a specific host when the animals are so spread out? We hear from Don about hunting for the 'deep scattering layer' (DSL) before we even knew what it was and find out where Larkin has been from her new vessel on the Gulf of Mexico.
In recent news we cover Edith Widder and her new book Below the Edge of Darkness, underwater GPS through the power of a pong, following the yellow brick road to meet the deep-sea wizard and some lovely new footage of a highfin dragonfish.
We also find ourselves talking about how the deep sea is portrayed in children’s books and learn that apparently zesty citrus and floral smells are associated with the deep ocean… who knew?!
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
We’d love to actually play your voice so feel free to record a short audio note!
We are also on
Twitter: @DeepSeaPod, @ArmatusO
Facebook: ArmatusOceanic
Instagram: @deepsea_podcast, @armatusoceanic
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Glossary
Abyssopelagic – open water 4-6 km (13,000 to 20,000 ft) deep
Aphotic zone – depths deeper than life penetrates
Bathypelagic – also known as the midnight zone, open water roughly 1-4 km (3,300-13,000 ft) deep
Benthic – associated with the bottom, how we usually think about the deep sea
Deep Scattering Layer (DSL) – a ‘false bottom’ created on sonar by huge numbers of open water animals
Dragonfish – deep-sea predators of the family Stomiidae
Dysphotic zone – the depth that light still penetrates but photosynthesis is becoming unviable
Euphotic zone – the surface and well illuminated zone
Hadalpelagic – open water >6 km deep
Mesopelagic – also called the twilight zone, starts where 1% of light reaches and ends where there is none, roughly 200-1,000 m (656-3,280 ft) deep
Myctophids – Lanternfish, fish responsible for the biggest carbon movements on the planet
Nictoepipelagic – The wink on the open sea. Great word for these vertical migrators
Pelagic – open ocean, away from the shore and the bottom
Photic zone – the depth that light penetrates
Vertical migration – the twice daily migration of deep-sea animals up to the surface to feed
Links
Tracey’s lab website
The synthesis paper of a decade of research into the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Open access
Carbon export model for mesopelagic fishes in the Gulf of Mexico
Rosetta stoned by TOOL
Youtube
Spotify
Edith Widder
Eye in the ocean
Edith’s new book
Vox podcast
Underwater GPS
Yellow-brick Road
Live stream
Best-of reel
Dragonfish and the Video
Rainbowfish discovers the deep sea
Deep Dive into Deep Sea
Larkin’s YouTube channel and Instagram
Credits
Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel
Logo image
Some of Thom’s pics from the Mid-Atlantic
Saturday May 07, 2022
Saturday May 07, 2022
https://www.armatusoceanic.com/podcast/023-deep-aquaria
Can we safely bring deep-sea organisms to the surface and keep them alive? Certain species, such as the giant isopods and giant Japanese spider crabs have been kept in aquaria in the past but the number of animals we can maintain long-term is quite small. The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s new Into the Deep exhibition has succeeded in keeping animals never before put on public display, some are even new to science. Not only that, but they have even had some success in getting them to reproduce! Figuring out what conditions these animals need and observing them over long periods will allow us to learn huge amounts about animals we usually only get a glimpse of. We talk with aquarists Ellen Umeda and Michelle Kaiser and life-support engineer Brian Maurer about the years of work that went into keeping these animals and giving the public a very personal deep-sea experience.
In the rest of the episode, Alan is back in the UK and we get to record in ‘the very quiet room’. We discuss data sharing and the complexities of charging for data that may otherwise not be taken, visiting the Explorers Club in New York and language barriers within science.
I also call Alan’s bluff and present him with a lovely Deep-Sea Podcast apron which he then proceeds to wear in Hell’s Kitchen in New York.
We hear from a listener about how the podcast helped them through a difficult time and answer a listener question about the danger of entanglement for undersea vehicles. If you’d like to record a question or comment please do and send it to the email below. We would love to include you on the show.
Check out our podcast merch! Which now includes Alan’s beloved apron.
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
We are also on
Twitter: @DeepSeaPod, @ArmatusO
Facebook: ArmatusOceanic
Instagram: @deepsea_podcast, @armatusoceanic
Glossary
AUV – Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
Gravid – the animal is full of eggs and getting close to spawning
Laminar flow – a simple water flow, no eddies
ROV – Remotely Operated Vehicle
Spawning – release of eggs and sperm
Vertical migrator – animals that rise up from the deep sea at night to feed at the surface
Links
Our new merch!
Let ‘Em Go by The Wildhearts
Spotify
Video
The Explorers Club
TMAO in molecular machines
Mapping the ocean floor
Scientific Tower of Babel
Into the Deep:
Aquarium YouTube Channel
Online exhibition
Deep-sea adaptation story with video
Bioluminescence story with video
Animal information story
Exhibition development with life support diagram
Credits
Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel
Logo image
Bloody-belly comb jelly – Monterey Bay Aquarium
Friday Apr 01, 2022
Friday Apr 01, 2022
https://www.armatusoceanic.com/podcast/022-dive-streaming
One of the most exciting parts of our job is going to places that no one has ever been before and seeing things that no one has ever seen. It turns out, we were making that far harder than it needs to be, we can do all this from home! Several of the big names in deep-sea exploration live-stream (or dive-stream if we’re being cute). With just a few seconds delay, you can see deep-sea exploration as it happens and may be present for very significant finds. You never know what you’re going to find down there.
The big players in this space are the Schmidt Ocean Institute, Nautilus Live from the Ocean Exploration Trust and Ocean Exploration/Okeanos Explorer from NOAA. We are lucky enough to chat with Kasey Cantwell, the Operations Chief of the NOAA Ocean Exploration Expeditions and Exploration Division. We talk about the amazing opportunities this new way of doing science presents. From allowing 300 experts to take part, to swapping out your expert team when you find something unexpected and even the physical and societal barriers that can be removed. But it’s not just about getting science done, it’s about sharing these experiences with everyone. Online communities are forming around these streams and illustrations, poetry and memes are just as valid outputs.
In recent news we hear how preparations are going for Alan’s upcoming cruise. We talk about the octopus garden providing a nice warm spot to brood eggs, living underwater for long periods of time and the evolution of early vamperoids.
No episode would be complete without our regular check-in with Don Walsh to hear about his involvement with the early days of ROV and AUV research.
Check out our podcast merch! Please do send in any pics of you wearing the merch. We find the idea of real people in the actual world wearing this so surreal!
We also have a UK-based job advertised. Why not come and help us with the podcast and some other fun stuff. More details here.
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
We are also on
Twitter: @ArmatusO
Facebook: ArmatusOceanic
Instagram: @armatusoceanic
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Glossary
AUV – Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
Berth – Beds available onboard a ship basically
Manganese nodule – potato shaped balls of metal that form on the seabed, the focus of deep-sea mining
ROV – Remotely Operated Vehicle
Taxonomist – A specialist in categorising a specific group of species.
Telepresence – Live-streaming what you’re doing on the internet
Links
Our new merch!
Tangaroa by Alien Weaponry
YouTube
Spotify
Octopus brooding in warm water
Article
Conference abstract
Living under the sea
Fabien Cousteau (Jacques Cousteau’s grandson) undersea live-in labs
Aquarious undersea lab
Two weeks under the sea
Earliest vampire squid
Article
Paper
Discovery of Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance
Paper that predicted that it would be intact
The Galathea Legacy - book - JohnQuentin.com
Start dive-streaming yourself!
NOAA Ocean Exploration
Schmidt Ocean Institute
Nautilus Live
Become part of the online community!
Livestream Oceanographic Discord
Look out for expedition names as hashtags on Twitter
Credits
Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel
Logo image
Alan’s new lander systems being loaded aboard
“We found a deep sea fish and told it it was beautiful” - Live-stream inspired art by C. B. Sorge - cbsorgeartworks.tumblr.com
Friday Mar 04, 2022
Friday Mar 04, 2022
We have often talked about how difficult it is the get data from the deep sea… but would you believe that the bottleneck to our understanding of the deep ocean, at least as far as visual data, is processing those images? Turning a picture of the deep sea into a list of species, habitat type, sediment type etc. is a time-consuming process that requires a wide range of skilled people.
Due to time/funding constrains a lot of valuable information is lost. A team looking at a specific question will have lots of information in their data that other teams could use.
A picture is worth a thousand data points.
We chat with Dr Kakani Katija, the co-founder of FathomNet, an open-source repository for labelled deep-sea imaging data. The platform is still in beta but it is hoped that it will allow scientists to easily and usefully share their amassed data in a single and easily searchable place.
But what about that processing bottleneck? The tech-savvy listener may have noticed that a massive collection of labelled image data is exactly the sort of thing you need to train a Machine Learning or Deep Learning algorithm. Can we automate a lot of the time-consuming image processing and let the experts focus on the new and unusual stuff? It’s at this cutting edge that things get exciting and we may be at the cusp of a marine science renaissance.
We have all our usual nonsense. Alan continues to find things in Australia that want to kill him. We answer some listener questions on deep-sea fish memory and Thom and Alan’s origin story. We also hear from Don about his time on the cruise ships. A decidedly un-deep-sea segment but it could be considered ‘adventure’ on the high seas.
We also launch our podcast merch! Please do send in any pics of you wearing the merch. We find the idea of real people in the actual world wearing this so surreal!
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
We are also on
Twitter: @ArmatusO
Facebook: ArmatusOceanic
Instagram: @armatusoceanic
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Glossary
Artificial Intelligence (AI) – A science dedicated to making machines think in an intelligent way, mirroring a biological brain.
Data pipeline – A path that raw data follows to become useful information.
Deep Learning – a more complex subset of ML that mirrors the way a brain works
Machine Learning (ML) – computers learning to perform a task without being explicitly programmed to do so
ML/AI model or algorithm – A model that has been trained on real data and can now process new data itself.
Online Repository – A database stored online so that people can access it from anywhere
Open Source – A publicly accessible design that people can freely repurpose and adapt.
Visual data – photos or video as a form of scientific data
Links
Our new merch!
Abyssal EDNA article and Paper
Our Angola fish paper and the Open access version
Kakani’s Twitter
FathomNet goodies
The FathomNet website – have an explore of the labelled deep-sea critter data
FathomNet GitHub – take a peek under the hood or even get involved
FathomNet articles with tutorials/explanations
Helpful video tutorials
Paper
NOAA Science Seminar, 8 March 2022 1200-1300 PST (UTC-8)
Register now!
FathomNet Workshop, 31 March & 1 April 2022 0800-1100 PST (UTC-8)
Register now!
Internet of Elephants (gamifying processing camera-trap data)
Beyond Blue (game)
Credits
Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel
Logo image
An image of the small-eyed rabbitfish (Hydrolagus affinis) we took off West Africa
Some of our new merch!
Saturday Feb 05, 2022
Saturday Feb 05, 2022
It’s February, the month of love and there’s love in the deep ocean too. We talk reproductive strategies in the deep sea with Professor Craig Young, Dr Autun Purser and Dr Mike Vecchione. How do you find a mate in the sparsely populated deep ocean? How can egg and sperm meet when you are fixed growing on a rock? How can your babies disperse and find a suitable habitat, especially if you live in a rare habitat like a hydrothermal vent? We find the solutions to all these problems and more.
We also have our regular contributors. Dr Don Walsh shares how a dolphin entourage isn’t a good thing if you’re trying to be a quiet and sneaky sub. Larkin also shares how it’s difficult to keep romance on the DL when you live in the tight confines of a ship, people do love to gossip.
In recent news, we announce the launch of Alan’s Deep-Sea Research centre but get distracted by the retired yob of a bird, the Kookaburra. We also consider starting a side-hustle selling dirty deep-sea bottled water and discuss a massive icefish nesting ground found in Antarctica.
We answer Maya’s listener question, ‘are there deep-sea-sons?’ Do they even know it is the month of romance?
Feel free to get in touch with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
We are also on
Twitter: @ArmatusO
Facebook: ArmatusOceanic
Instagram: @armatusoceanic
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Glossary
Abyssal plain – the wide-open spaces of the deep sea, most of the planet
Filter feeder – animal that feeds by filtering the water e.g., sponge
Gametes – the reproductive cells, eggs and sperm
Gonad – the organ that produces the gametes
Hadal trench – the deep-sea trenches more than 6 km deep
Hermaphrodite – both male and female simultaneously
Sessile – animals that cannot move (opposite of mobile)
Links
Launch of Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre
Deep-Ocean bottled water
First humans to the bottom of the Atacama Trench
Massive icefish breeding ground paper
Seasons in the Abyss by Slayer
Ecosystems of the World – Craig has a great chapter on reproduction in this book
Paper - Estimating dispersal distance in the deep sea: challenges and applications to marine reserves
Paper - Reproduction, Larval Biology, and Recruitment of the Deep-Sea Benthos
Paper - Hadal snailfish reproduction
Larkin’s YouTube channel My Salty Sea Life
Credits
Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel
Logo image
Deep-sea Lizardfish, Bathysaurus ferox
Icefish nests
Saturday Jan 08, 2022
Saturday Jan 08, 2022
As promised in the Christmas special, we call the ‘squid-phone’ – a special line used by scientists globally when they seem something strange and squiddy. On the other end of that line is Mike Vecchione, the expert on cephalopods. We talk giant and colossal squid (to audible groans from Mike); the bigfin squid (Magnapinna), most famous for being the squid with the long trailing arms that’s often used as an example of terrifying deep-sea creatures, but also a species, genus and Family that Mike described and would love more sightings of.
In recent news, we worry about deep-ocean circulation and its impact on climate. Reflect on a year of amazing sightings from Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) including the giant phantom jelly (Stygiomedusa gigantea) and barreleye fish (Macropinna microstoma).
We also address a snailfish imposter. The world’s deepest fish, the Mariana snailfish is more often than not represented by an image of a totally different species that happens to have a more attractive headshot. Prema Arasu presents her poem; An Ode to the Blobfish, in honour of another species dominated by one misleading photo.
Our regular contributors drop by too: Larkin – our resident deckhand tells the tale of an impromptu squid dissection and Don Walsh reflects on piloting the super-deep diving bathyscaphe Trieste in a time when giant squid attack was still a worry.
An Ode to the Blobfish by Prema Arasu
O Psychrolutes marcidus! O gelatinous shape!
Thou art the ravish’d bride of deep-sea trawlers—
Unassuming foster child of the timeless abyss
Untimely ripp’d from thy diatomaceous womb
Fearful fishermen rejoice at thy sacrifice
An Antipodean altar attended by inchoate priest—
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring thou shall rise and on the surface die.
Were I anointed and dragged to your Hadal habitus
Flayed and deconsecrated at thy mucilaginous prow—
Were I to partake in salt’d communion
With thou, we would be one and the same.
Hideousness is a lie, lies hideousness, that is all
We know on land, and all we need to know.
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
We are also on
Twitter: @ArmatusO
Facebook: ArmatusOceanic
Instagram: @armatusoceanic
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Correction
The Permian-Triassic extinction was not 98% of marine life, 96% of often cited but 81% seems the most accurate current estimate.
Links
Check out this fantastic book that Mike co-authored if you would like to learn more about cephalopods
Larkin’s YouTube channel My Salty Sea Life
More info about Prema Arasu
Deep-ocean circulation paper
The piezothermal effect
The polar see-saw
MBARI have had a great year for filming deep-sea critters and have a great best-of reel on YouTube.
Pink hand fish
Football fish
Falkor mural
Soft robotic snailfish
Blue Planet II poster
Nautilus Magazine
Alan's interview
Global assessment of hadal fishes – our big paper
Abyssobrotula galatheae – previous deepest fish from a single report
Bony-eared assfish
Top 5% of podcasts
Lonesome marine biologist Nando
Recent bigfin squid video
Zappa jellyfish
Observational articles: a tool to reconstruct ecological history based on chronicling unusual events by Ferdinando "Nando" Boero
Deepest squid paper
Deepest octopi paper
The Pteropods – swimming snails
Oegopsida or Oceanic squids, the true squid
Myopsids or coastal squids, could be considered true squid
Sepiolida the Bobtail squids
Vampyroteuthis infernalis the vampire squid, more closely related to octopods
Magnapinna sp. The bigfin squid, a charismatic and recently discovered family (the one's that creep everyone out!)
My Octopus Teacher on Netflix
Ramshorn squid (Spirula)
The Serpent Project
Credits
Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel
Logo image
The Atacama snailfish which is often published as the Mariana snailfish
The long-arm squid filmed by DSV Alvin, possibly an adult Magnapinna sp. Public Domain NOAA
Saturday Dec 04, 2021
Saturday Dec 04, 2021
We like to let our hair down a little for the Christmas episode and do something a little different. We recorded video this episode! You can find the video version of this podcast on our YouTube page. Me and Alan crack out some mulled wine and decide to interview each other for this episode. Things get a little off the topic of deep sea but it’s all in good fun (if a little dark at times).
We won’t leave you totally without some deep-sea updates though. We still have our news section which includes new research into how sponges may be able to think, a deep-sea crawler that has been tirelessly surveying Station-M for seven years, a new species of deep-diving beaked whale, a new and really nice video of the creepy bigfin squid, can rockfish help us live longer and it turns out that Terry the fat shark is real.
No episode would be complete without checking in with Don Walsh, who tells a story of a Christmas in the Western Antarctic… the far side, and Larkin who has her Christmas plans suddenly change while trying to leave her ship in Mexico.
Whatever you celebrate at this time of year, we hope you have a wonderful time. See you all again in the new year.
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
We are also on
Twitter: @ArmatusO
https://twitter.com/ArmatusO
Facebook: ArmatusOceanic
https://www.facebook.com/ArmatusOceanic
Instagram: @armatusoceanic
https://www.instagram.com/armatusoceanic/
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Glossary
Box core: A large sediment sampling device that takes one huge sample
Grimpoteuthis: the dumbo octopuses
Hadal: Deeper than 6000 m
Holotype: a single specimen expressly designated as the name-bearing “type”
Lander: a freefalling vehicle which sinks to the seabed and returns to the surface by dropping ballast
MBARI: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Multi core: A large sediment sampling device that takes multiple smaller samples
Paratype: A specimen cited along with the type collection in the original description of a taxon
ROV: Remotely Operated Vehicle
Sunk Cost Fallacy: Sticking with a bad idea because you have already invested so much in it.
Links
Sponge neurons
Benthic Rover II
New beaked whale
Paper
New bigfin squid video
Chunky shark
Deep-sea rockfish longevity
Paper
Mammoth tusk
Garfield phone beach
Ray Troll
Paleo Nerds Podcast
Burial at sea
Iron Maiden - Live After Death
Larkin’s YouTube channel My Salty Sea Life
Credits
Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel
Sound effects from the BBC archive
Logo image
Terry the fat shark
Our countdown timer at sea
Saturday Nov 06, 2021
Saturday Nov 06, 2021
https://www.armatusoceanic.com/podcast/018-sound
We think of the deep sea as an eerily quiet and spooky place but that isn’t completely true, animal communication, seismic activity, human noise and even the sound of rain and waves from 10 km above. We chat with undersea audio expert Dr David Barclay about the fascinating audio properties of the deep ocean. As we are talking audio data on an audio medium, lets have some fun with a game of ‘what can we grenad-hear’ where Thom tries to guess the deep-sea sound.
We also have deep-sea news: India are developing their own 6 km rated human occupied vehicle (Samudrayaan); genetics links deep-sea shrimp with their planktonic juvenile stages; the HACON project explores the Aurora black smoker field at 4000 m/13,000 ft under the Arctic; we also reveal that a mysterious squid-like creature, was, in fact, a squid.
We also discuss communication (through the medium of famous quotes). Are we losing the ability to actually engage and learn things from each other? Are we all just yelling at each other online from our respective teams? Not willing to really listen to the other side but rather ‘own them’ and drop the mic. In a pandemic of misinformation where a catchy meme can ruin, or even end, peoples lives do we have a duty to try to engage with people? What about the tole that takes on our own mental health?
Don Walsh drops by with some amazing stories from his sub commander days. A life entirely dependent on listening and being quiet. We then have a ‘tale from the high seas’ from Larkin to finish things up.
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
We are also on
Twitter: @ArmatusO
https://twitter.com/ArmatusO
Facebook: ArmatusOceanic
https://www.facebook.com/ArmatusOceanic
Instagram: @armatusoceanic
https://www.instagram.com/armatusoceanic/
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Glossary
CTD: Conductivity, temperature and depth sensor
Gametes: sex or germ cells. Eggs and sperm
Grenadier: another name for a rattail fish
Hydrothermal vent: seawater heated by the earth flows out of the seabed
Lander: Free-falling or pop-up vehicle. Sinks from the surface and comes up again by dropping ballast
Refraction: the change in direction of a wave passing from one medium to another
Sound channel: Also called the SOFAR channel, a horizontal layer of water in the ocean at which depth the speed of sound is at its minimum
Links
Alan’s new hadal centre:
https://www.minderoo.org/deep-sea-research/
India’s deep sub:
https://www.wionews.com/india-news/samudrayaan-indias-first-manned-deep-sea-probe-to-travel-6-km-under-water-425414
Matching deep-sea shrimp with their pelagic larva:
https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/13/10/457/htm
Giant squid like creature:
https://www.timesnownews.com/the-buzz/article/viral-news-massive-squid-like-creature-larger-than-human-spotted-by-scientists-while-exploring-red-sea/822261
COP26 – Deep Sea World:
https://youtu.be/0oSpk1eSWMs
HACON project:
https://mashable.com/article/deep-sea-science-arctic
Forbes’ azotic theory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azoic_hypothesis
David’s other podcast: Sciographie:
https://www.dal.ca/news/2020/09/11/scientists-tell-their-own-stories-on-third-season-of-sciographie.html
David’s research website:
https://noise.phys.ocean.dal.ca/deepoceannoise.html
Implosion in the Challenger Deep paper:
https://tos.org/oceanography/assets/docs/34-2_loranger.pdf
Underwater noise during COVID-19:
https://asa.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1121/10.0001271
KM3Net: hunting for neutrinos in the deep sea:
https://www.km3net.org/
Credits
Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel
Logo image
David's lander in action
Saturday Oct 02, 2021
Saturday Oct 02, 2021
https://www.armatusoceanic.com/podcast/017-going-to-sea
We love going to sea, it is probably the best part of the job. That’s where most of our adventures happen, that’s where most of the exciting discoveries and firsts happen and it’s where we meet some of the most interesting people. We want you to have a great time at sea too and not be put off by a bad first experience. Poor packing or a faux pas could spoil the whole experience and we don’t want that. We put together some advice for your first trip. Forgive us if parts seem patronising, they are all things we have seen spoil someone’s trip and with everything else to worry about, it’s easy to forget the simple stuff.
We chat with Larkin, a deck-hand turned youtuber about life at sea and sharing that experience through her videos. What is her average day like at sea and how’s the morning commute when your office is a small response vessel chasing a submarine 10,000 m below you? How can you get a celebratory tattoo offshore from an unqualified scientist? “Don’t worry, he’s a doctor, not that sort of doctor but don’t worry about that!”
Larkin represents the growing proportion of women at sea, a situation which has rapidly changed over the last few years. Did you know that there was a time when she would have been considered bad luck? Don Walsh tells us about the gradual changes to offshore culture that has allowed this and the female pioneers who blazed that trail for the current generation. There is still much to do, but things are accelerating.
Finally, we hear from listeners what their tips are for your first trip offshore.
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
We are also on
Twitter: @ArmatusO
Facebook: ArmatusOceanic
Instagram: @armatusoceanic
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Glossary
AB – Able Bodied seamen or deck hands
A-frame – type of lifting equipment, usually at the stern
Aft – towards the front of the boat
Bow – the front of the boat
Bridge – Usually at the top of the boat, where it is steered from
Bulkhead – the thick metal internal walls of a boat
Cabin – where you sleep offshore
Deck – the floors on a boat
Fore – towards the front of the boat
Head – the toilet
Mates – Officers under the captain (1st and 2nd mate)
Mess – the dining hall on a boat
Port – left side of the boat (regardless of which way you are facing), colour coded red
Rigger boots – steel toe capped safety shoes
Starboard - right side of the boat (regardless of which way you are facing), colour coded green
Zodiac – a small and fast inflatable boat
Links
Vote for a moratorium on deep-sea mining
Pig-faced shark found in Mediterranean Sea
More info on Oxynotus centrina (Linnaeus, 1758)
Big-eye grenadier on Reddit
Not too sure about the identification as the pic is quite distorted. Here’s info in the bigeye grenadier
My Salty Sea Life
Website
Instagram
YouTube
Facebook
Larkin’s ‘a day in the life of a sailor’ video. Great prep for your first time at sea.
Larkin’s morning commute
(a keen eye may spot Alan pottering about in the background)
Credits
Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel
Offshore advice sound clips
Nikki – lecturer of marine biology
Andy - marine biologist
Nic – marine surveyor
James – marine geotechnical engineer
Giuseppe – marine scientists, EuroMarine early career scientist group OYSTER
Natalia – marine scientist, OYSTER communications manager
Logo image
The symbol of Hades
Alan giving Larkin the tattoo
Hidden track
Additional sound effects from https://www.zapsplat.com
BBC sound archive
Saturday Sep 04, 2021
Saturday Sep 04, 2021
https://www.armatusoceanic.com/podcast/016-biodiscovery
We are in desperate need for new bioactive compounds. Superbugs are on the rise as evolution finds a way of thwarting our antibiotics. We are also continually on the hunt for compounds that can fight disease, ease suffering or get your teeth super white. The natural world has been experimenting for millions of years and has come up with solutions far more elegant than we could come up with.
Don pops by to make us aware of bioprospecting. The ocean, and in particular the deep ocean, may be the best place to look for new compounds but is this a threat to the ocean? It is often mentioned alongside seabed trawling, climate change and mining as a threat to the deep ocean. Should we call it bioprospecting or biodiscovery and what’s the difference? If most of the world’s ocean belongs to everyone, who owns a discovery? How do we ensure that developed nations, who are better equipped to benefit from a discovery, don’t leave developing nations out? Are companies really patenting naturally occurring compounds? If we find something exciting, what is the process for it becoming the next wonder drug?
While they both agree that looking for new compounds in the deep sea sounds good, Alan and Thom are soon stumped by the complexities of actually making that happen in a fair and sustainable way. Luckily, they can call on Professor Marcel Jaspars, head of the Marine Biodiscovery Centre to help us through the practicalities of biodiscovery but also its political and ethical complexities.
As ever there will be a roundup of current news. The sex-lives of giant squid, are they monogamous? India launches its Deep Ocean Mission with the intention of starting deep-sea mining and we ponder why large surface predators would dive very deep.
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
We are also on
Twitter: @ArmatusO
Facebook: ArmatusOceanic
Instagram: @armatusoceanic
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Glossary
Benthopelagic - Living and feeding near the bottom as well as in midwaters or near the surface but also the depth zone about 100 metres off the bottom at all depths below the edge of the continental shelf.
Endothermy – Animals that regulate their body temperature (we used to call this ‘warm blooded’)
Geomagnetic – The Earth’s magnetic field e.g., magnetic north.
Mantle – The muscular tube that makes up a squids body.
Mesopelagic – Open water fish between about 200 and 1,000 metres (approximately 650 and 3,300 ft) down.
SoFAR channel - sound fixing and ranging channel. The SOFAR channel acts as a waveguide for sound, and low frequency sound waves within the channel may travel thousands of miles before dissipating.
Vertical migration – Every night, mesopelagic fish come shallower to feed. This is the largest migration on Earth and it happens every day.
Links
Giant squid could be monogamous
Article:
Paper (paywall):
Bone and wood eating worms of the Antarctic
India’s Deep-Ocean Mission approved
Deep diving large marine predators
Are whales making these depressions in the deep seabed?
Take two clams and call me in the morning (paywall)
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
The Convention on Biological Diversity
The Nagoya Protocol
The Deepest of Ironies (paywall)
Evolving Perspectives On The International Seabed Area’s Genetic Resources: Fifteen Years After The ‘Deepest Of Ironies’ (paywall)
Who owns marine biodiversity? Contesting the world order through the ‘common heritage of humankind’ principle
Corporate control and global governance of marine genetic resources
Polymers: Secrets from the deep sea
Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS)
Ocean Tool for Public Understanding and Science (OcToPUS)
Deep sea at the Chelsea Flower Show
Song of the Ocean – Global Virtual Performance 2021
Sharing the Benefits of the Ocean (loads of wider reading here)
Credits
Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel
Logo image
Far Below the Sea Blooms – Chelsea Flower Show, Marcel Jaspars
One of Thom and Alan’s cultures
Hidden track
Someone To Watch Over Me
by Ira and George Gershwin; Linda Keene; Henry Levine and his Strictly from Dixie Jazz Band
Humpback Whale (Megaptera Novaeangliae) – BBC sound archive
Monday Aug 23, 2021
Monday Aug 23, 2021
https://www.armatusoceanic.com/podcast/015-space-pt2
We hunker down behind the blast doors and quickly record part 2 of our space episode before 426 manages to get through. That’ll make more sense once you hear the episode, or maybe it won’t! I may have gotten carried away on the sound design on this one.
We are still exploring the parallels between space and deep-ocean exploration. It feels like technology and access is really accelerating in both spheres. Don calls in to teach us about the amount of water in our solar system and the potential new job title – Planetary Oceanographer.
When an incredible piece of tech grants us access to an exciting new frontier, it can be hard to manage all the different things we would like to do. Alan relays how, on his expeditions, data is first shared with the host nations and then access is requested.
When samples or access to a vehicle is limited, how can we ensure that resources are shared fairly? We have seen it lead to disagreements on ships. With something as singular and precious as a Mars rover, how are its objectives planned? Evan Hilgemann, mechanical engineer and Curiosity Rover driver with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JLP) joins us to share how a rover is managed. We chat about the parallels between exploring mars and exploring the deep sea, the similar issues we face, what we can learn from each other and most excitingly, where is technology heading on both fronts! It turns out fleets of distributed intelligence rovers on the moon or a steam-punk rover on Venus aren’t all that farfetched. These are exciting times.
Feel free to get in touch with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
We are also on
Twitter: @ArmatusO
Facebook: ArmatusOceanic
Instagram: @armatusoceanic
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Glossary
Autonomous - Something which can get on with things without human control
AUV - Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
Distributed intelligence – a very fuzzy term but basically multiple ‘stupid’ elements working together to do complex processing or make complex decisions.
Hadal - Areas more than 6000 m deep, mainly the deep-ocean trenches
JPL - NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
ROV - Remotely Operated Vehicle
Transect - A quantitative survey of an area. You fly a set path and quantify everything on it.
Links
Evan’s Twitter: @evanhilgemann
Evan’s Newsletter
Steampunk rover article
Steampunk rover video
Credits
Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel
Logo image
Curiosity rover – NASA
World's Largest Ball of Twine, Darwin, Minnesota - postcard
Thursday Aug 12, 2021
Thursday Aug 12, 2021
Sorry for the lateness of the episode, we were rather ambitious with this one. Thom and Alan get access to a sound stage and get to actually record the podcast in the same room for the first time. In recent news there seems to be some pop-culture discoveries, the Eye of Sauron and Spongebob and Patrick have been found in the deep sea. Finally, we try not to get too depressed about ocean warming and deep-sea mining buy considering our own energy budgets.
The topic for this double episode is, as ever, the deep sea. But this time we are talking about the deep sea… Innnnnn Spaaaaaaaace! It turns out there is deep sea outside of earth, even in our solar system. The ice-covered moons of the gas giants likely contain liquid water. How likely are they to contain deep-sea life completely independent from the life that originated on earth? What are the best candidates for alien life in our solar system? What could that life be like and why does our own deep ocean provide a perfect test bed? Thom chats with astrobiologist Kevin Peter Hand, author of Alien Oceans: The search for life in the depths of space, and director of NASA’s Ocean Worlds Lab.
How will we explore these alien deep seas? It turns out that the early versions of the vehicles which may some day explore these ocean worlds are already in development. Thom chats with Casey Machado, Research Engineer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution about the Orpheus AUV, the first generation of such vehicle and a new asset for the exploration of our own deep ocean.
It turns out space is big, too big for a single podcast. Look out for episode 2 next week.
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
We are also on
Twitter: @ArmatusO
Facebook: ArmatusOceanic
Instagram: @armatusoceanic
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Glossary
Astronomical unit - the distance between the Earth and the Sun
AUV: Autonomous Underwater Vehicle
Hadal - Areas more than 6000 m deep, mainly the deep-ocean trenches
K strategist - an organism that has few offspring but invests a lot of resources and energy into them, e.g. whale
Molar concentration - one mole (6.02214076×1023 particles) of substance in a litre of solution.
R strategist - an organism that has many 'cheap' offspring, e.g. salmon
ROV – Remotely Operated Vehicle
Links
Undersea volcano looks like the Eye of Sauron
Spongebob and Patrick at almost 2000 m
Temperature impact on deep-sea biodiversity
Sign up for the DOSI newsletter
The Ocean Worlds Lab
The buoyant rover for under ice exploration
Alien Oceans: The Search for Life in the Depths of Space
The very bad day, the loss of Nereus
WHOI Hadex website
Orpheus
Friday Jul 02, 2021
Friday Jul 02, 2021
https://www.armatusoceanic.com/podcast/013-submarine-special
Thom thought he had the podcast to himself, but it turns out the professor is back after 88 days at sea. It’s time for our submarine, or human occupied vehicle (HOV) if you’re posh, special. First we reunite ‘Vegemite and Haggis’ and talk to submarine pilot Tim Macdonald about his and Alan’s undersea adventures around Australia. Manganese nodule fields, gothic cathedrals, and an undersea UFO.
Life starts to imitate art. We chat with sci-fi author John Quentin who Alan has been consulting with while he writes his next book: The Galathea Legacy, about deep-ocean plastic pollution taking place at the site of the Galathea Expedition trawls in the Philippine Trench. A site which Alan and Tim recently dived… forcing John to tweak the draft as he strives for realism.
We then speak with Patrick Lahey and Frank Lombardo of Triton Submarines, a bespoke submarine manufacturer, about privately owned submersibles. Initially as luxury pleasure craft but we soon find out that there is a wide range of reasons why someone would want their own sub. Throughout their careers they have had many incredible experiences, like seeing a sixgill shark give birth and communicating with bioluminescent organisms.
The podcast wouldn’t be complete without checking in with Don Walsh. He tells us about the large commercial tourist submarines which have now produced more tourist submariners than the US navy.
It’s a packed episode but we sneak some news in there too. Deep-sea fishes have more variation in body shape than shallow-water fishes. A new species, genus, and family of brittle star from a lineage dating back to the Jurassic. Coelacanth can live up to a century and Mesobot, a new method for studying open water animals.
Glossary
Autonomous vehicle: A vehicle that doesn’t need a human pilot
Brittle star: Related to sea stars, they have very flexible whip-like arms. Echinoderms of the class Ophiuroidea
Globular: Globe-like, spherical
Human Occupied Vehicle (HOV): Another term for a submarine
Hypoxic: Insufficient oxygen
Thrusters: the propellers on an underwater vehicle that allow it to move
Links
Deep-sea fish have a lot more body shape variation than shallow fish
Deep-sea fish are confused by complex structures
New family of brittle star
Coelacanth can live to a century
John’s upcoming book The Galathea Legacy
Triton submersibles
Atlantis tourist subs
The hidden track is real, Thom did say ‘anus’ on TV. You can see us and a lot of our guests, and experience the Five Deeps Expedition, in Expedition Deep Ocean on Discovery+
Saturday Jun 05, 2021
Saturday Jun 05, 2021
Natural history collections, huge archives of carefully curated specimens, are an invaluable tool for the scientific community. They are also a place where the public get to interact with active research and meet scientists. Forget what you’d imagine working in a museum to be like, no two days are the same and both the collections and the talented people who work with them are in constant demand. One day your helping design new swimwear based on shark skin, the next settling an argument at a fishing competition.
If you’re wondering what jobs are out there in science or just curious to know what goes on behind the scenes at a museum, this episode has some surprises for you.
Alan is still away at sea, so Thom is joined again by Dr Heather Ritchie to tacked some deep-sea news, seabed mapping, secrets revealed by snailfish genes and wandering sponges are all hot off the presses. Don also drops in with an example of when you don’t want to collect biology, on the hull of your vessel as biofouling.
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Links
𝐸𝑢𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑠 description
Bathymetry from The Five Deeps Published
The Yap Trench snailfish
Wandering sponges
James taking care of the beetles during lockdown
Microplastics in deep-sea fish
James talking about deep-sea fish.
CT scanning reveals anglerfish meal
Shark nostril research
Cookie-cutter shark bites
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa – deep sea video
The Fishes of New Zealand
Glossary
Authority – The scientist who describes a species
Snailfish – Members of the Liparidae, the deepest living fishes
TMAO - Trimethylamine N-oxide, a molecule that is involved in pressure adaptation
Taxonomy – The science of classifying living things
Type – A specimen that is formally associated with the scientific name
Holotype – The singular definitive example of a species
CT scanning – Computerised Tomography Scanning. Basically, a 3D x-ray
Sequence – A part of the genetic code that we can compare between samples
Isotopes – When atoms of the same element vary in their mass
Otolith – The ear bones of fishes
Saturday May 08, 2021
Saturday May 08, 2021
Alan is stranded out in the Pacific and Thom is left to present a show on genetics, a topic so confusing to him it may as well be magic. Luckily, friends of the show are on hand. Dr Heather Ritchie is tricked into co-hosting and we talk to Dr Johanna Weston about the things we can learn about the deep sea from genetic analysis.
Alan has found a way to get audio logs to us (pretty sure a Holtzman Wave isn’t a thing) and shares what he has been up to out at sea – it turns out, a lot! Listen in for lots of exclusives. This includes an interview with sub-pilot Tim Macdonald from inside the Limiting Factor at over 10,000 m depth. We are pretty sure this is the world deepest interview. The Deep-Sea Podcast lives up to its name, the deepest podcast around.
In recent news we discuss how our immune system doesn’t recognise deep-sea bacteria (and how that may be a good thing) and Thom gushes about his new favourite thing… blackwater photography.
Don Walsh tells us about inspecting ex-soviet reactors and discovering he is standing on top of a running one and Thom and Heather tell the tale of acquiring a -80 ℃ freezer in New Caledonia.
Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:
podcast@armatusoceanic.com
Read the show notes and find out more about us at:
www.armatusoceanic.com
Links
Deep-sea bacterial invisible to human immune system
Blackwater photography article
Blackwater photography paper
‘The Code’ - INTERNATIONAL CODE OF ZOOLOGICAL NOMENCLATURE
The genetic code database – GenBank
You can track where Alan currently is here
GlossaryMorphology – the shape of somethings bodyMolecular – Sometimes we say ‘molecular data’ when talking about DNA and RNA genetic dataTaxonomy – The science of classifying living things