I’m Juliet Tretler, a graduate student at Nova Southeastern University on my first ever deep sea cruise. I’ve worked with Dr. Tracey Sutton on processing and cataloging samples from previous DEEPEND cruises for the past year, so I was eager to go to sea and see fresh samples of some of the fish I’ve helped preserve.

Hi everyone!

We have arrived at our first station, Viosca Knoll! Yesterday was a busy day filled with assembling equipment and putting together the MOCNESS net (more on this in a later post) while at the dock and we headed out just after midnight after our safety briefing was completed by the captain.

Yes, my friends, it is time for another DEEPEND cruise! 

We will be heading out late on Friday, Sept. 6th into the Gulf of Mexico on one of our favorite vessels, the R/V Point Sur.  This trip will be a little different than our past DEEPEND cruises as we have received funding for a new project, "Deep Sea Benefits".  We will be using acoustics, our trusty MOC10 net, and perhaps have a couple new projects to share once we are underway.

By- Heather Judkins

Well, that's a wrap!  We finished processing our last station in the wee hours of Friday morning and headed bock to Gulfport, MS.  It's been quite a successful trip with many new finds and exciting new questions to look into as we continue to explore this region of the Gulf of Mexico!

At the last station, we had quite a haul of crustacean species as well as lots of hatchetfishes- both of which scatter sound.  We did acoustic work using the multibeam sonar to locate the DSL and towed the MOC10 system within these layers to get an idea of which animals may be found. This region is of the ocean is important because it represents the transfer of energy from the upper epipelagic to the deeper benthic systems.  Many of the fish and crustaceans in the DSL are prey for benthic invertebrates and predatory fishes. (see Haley G's blog for more on acoustics).