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:

[email protected]

We are also on

Twitter: @ArmatusO

Facebook: ArmatusOceanic

Instagram: @armatusoceanic

Read the show notes and find out more about us at:

www.armatusoceanic.com

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

Our new merch!

Abyssal EDNA article and Paper

Our Angola fish paper and the Open access version

Kakani’s Twitter

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)

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!

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:

[email protected]

We are also on

Twitter: @ArmatusO

Facebook: ArmatusOceanic

Instagram: @armatusoceanic

Read the show notes and find out more about us at:

www.armatusoceanic.com

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)

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

Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel

Logo image

Deep-sea Lizardfish, Bathysaurus ferox

Icefish nests

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:

[email protected]

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

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:

[email protected]

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

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:

[email protected]

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

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

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/

Theme – Hadal Zone Express by Märvel

Logo image

David's lander in action

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:

[email protected]

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

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:

[email protected]

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

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:

[email protected]

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

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:

[email protected]

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

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+