Journey into Midnight: Light and Life Below the Twilight Zone
Past Expedition
Overview
From June 8 – 22, a team of researchers will explore the water column in some of the deepest parts of the Gulf of Mexico in order to determine what happens to deep-sea animals when a very important constraint is taken away from them – that of light. They will make observations and collect samples for further study on the characterization of visual systems, bioluminescence, and fluorescence of organisms living below 1,000 meters (3,280 feet), in the bathypelagic (midnight) zone.
Features
Sönke Johnsen likes to say that that everyone wants to go to sea once, but only one out of a hundred ever wants to go again. Those who do it again and again fall in love with the animals, the people, the adventure, and also the ships themselves.
June 21, 2019
Scientists are usually pictured on screen as sober and humorless types, pre-occupied with numbers and empty facts. However, nothing could be further from the truth, at least among the scientists we know. We are deeply passionate about our fields, sometimes to the point of obsession. Yet we are also trained from the beginning to control this passion, not so that we can be seen as serious or important, but so that we don't fool ourselves. It is so easy to fall in love with an idea to the point that we can convince ourselves that it's true even when the data do not agree. And so we fight to keep ourselves in check – to not get too excited. We're like cars with the gas and brake pedal pushed to the floor; roaring, but also holding ourselves in place. Now and then, we get to take our foot off the brake...and it all comes loose.
June 20, 2019
Up until a week ago or so, remotely operated vehicle pilot/technician Travis Kolbe didn’t know what a BLOG was until he started working with some scientist that “schooled” him on what it means. Read his first ever...BLOG...to learn more about his role on the expedition.
June 19, 2019
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In the midnight zone, sunlight is long extinguished and the only light comes in the form of bioluminescence from the animals that live there. Predators can take advantage of this fact and scan the water for glints of light reflected from the skin or scales of potential prey. In this game of life and death, how have animals evolved to minimize the amount of light they reflect and stay hidden? By being blacker than black.
June 18, 2019
Last night, the team ran into a phenomenon that is found primarily in deep-sea invertebrates (animals without backbones). That is the phenomenon of gigantism in the deep sea, when animals grow much larger than their shallow water relatives.
June 17, 2019
Trying to imagine what life is like for animals inhabiting the deep ocean is an enormous challenge. Because so many have fantastic eyes, it’s evident that vision plays a major role in their existence. And the light they have evolved to see – living light, called bioluminescence – is apparently equally fantastic. The trick is to be able to observe unobtrusively. That’s what the Medusa is designed to do.
June 16, 2019
Whether it is deploying the Medusa or retrieving the Tucker Trawl, everyone onboard has a role to play in the day-to-day operations to make science happen.
June 15, 2019
After rain delays and having to move to a new exploration site away from the Gulf Stream, the team finally deployed the remotely operated vehicle and was able to witness some of the most beautiful animals on our planet, reminding Heather Bracken-Grissom that so many things are still "worth the wait."
June 14, 2019
Dr. Lorian Schweikert writes that she wishes you were out here with the team, as the experience is too grand to keep to herself.
June 12, 2019
We are very proud to have on the Point Sur the scientist, Edith Widder, who captured the first-ever footage of a giant squid in its natural environment!
June 11, 2019
As soon as the squalls ended and the rough seas quieted, we were all anxious to start doing what we are here to do - science!
June 10, 2019
As they say, "love nature, but always remember that it doesn't love you back." Nature is nature, and not interested in our love – or our plans.
June 9, 2019
What better way to celebrate World Oceans Day than doing some real science investigations in the Gulf of Mexico!
June 8, 2019
The deep sea is the largest habitat on Earth and the last unexplored frontier on our planet. It is home to peculiar creatures and mystifying phenomena that appear to live only in science-fiction stories. These animals’ unique physical traits have attracted the interest of many people, including the general public and scientists alike.
June 4, 2012
It’s critically important for this research that the team collects live animals in excellent condition, and a 9m2 Tucker Trawl with a carefully designed collecting vesselat the end of the net, called a cod-end, allows them to do just that. Tucker Trawls come in a variety of sizes, and are affectionately referred to a baby Tuckers for the smaller ones, and mother Tuckers for the larger ones.
June 4, 2012
The mission for this expedition is to explore what happens to deep-sea animals when a very important constraint is taken away from them – that of light.
June 4, 2012
The team will be collecting fish, shrimp, and squid for explorations of vision and bioluminescence below 1,000 meters (3,280 feet), but the trawl net tends to destroy the jellyfish, known as gelatinous zooplankton. Since so little is known about animals that live below 1,000 meters, they will be using the Deep-Sea Systems Global Explorer remotely operated vehicle to also explore these depths, filming animals in their natural habitats.
June 4, 2012
The bathypelagic zone hosts a unique assortment of highly adapted fishes, most of which are extremely rare in museum and research collections. These adaptations help fishes find and eat prey, and find each other, in a permanently sunless habitat. In some cases, the adaptations have driven the radiation of entire fish families in the bathypelagic zone, where in other cases these adaptations allow individual species of primarily shallower-living fish families (e.g., lanternfishes, hatchetfishes) to survive.
June 4, 2012
Most deep-sea animals do not have color vision. They have a single, blue-sensitive, visual pigment because 1) as you go deeper through water in the ocean, all the colors disappear except for blue and 2) most bioluminescence is blue. Why waste space in your eyes for multiple visual pigments when there’s only blue light to see? There are exceptions, of course, and that’s when things get really interesting.
June 4, 2012
The Medusa is the same stealth camera system that captured the first video of a giant squid in the deep sea. The concept behind the system is that it is unobtrusive. Because the Medusa uses red lights that are invisible to most deep-sea inhabitants and has no noise-generating thrusters, it can serve as a stealthy observer of light and life below the twilight zone.
June 4, 2012
Cephalopods are known for their amazing ability to camouflage and change their appearance quickly in the shallow ocean zones around the world. What do they do when there is no light available? The need to camouflage no longer exists, so what adaptations has this group of invertebrates developed?
June 4, 2012
Multimedia
Featured multimedia assets associated with this project.
Education
Our Learn & Discover page provides the best of what the NOAA Ocean Exploration website has to offer to support educators in the classroom during this expedition. Each theme page includes expedition features, lessons, multimedia, career information, and associated past expeditions. Below are related top education themes for this expedition.
Meet the Exploration Team
Learn more about the team members and their contributions to this project.
Assistant Professor - Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University-Biscayne Bay Campus
Graduate Student – Duke University
Vice President, Center for Conservation & Research - San Antonio Zoo
Professor - Nova Southeastern University
Professor of Biology - Duke University
Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences - University of South Florida St. Petersburg