Oceans

This year is the 2400th anniversary of the birth of Aristotle, a philosopher and scientist (384 BCE), who among other many great achievements was the first person to describe the structure, ecology, and diversity of sea urchins – way back in the 4th century BC.

A new fully illustrated electronic identification guide, Bountiful Bryozoans, has just been released to help people identify this group of marine creatures in the wild.

An interactive guide to the bryozoans of New Zealand

The seafloor of the Ross Sea region is covered in ice for much of the year, but many benthic sea creatures live and thrive there.

An interactive guide to the starfish of the Ross Sea

The main output of this voyage is providing data and fundamental base maps for future regional prospectivity surveys, tectonic plate reconstructions, and general understanding of the architecture of the Kermadec backarc.

We have reached the end of our sampling program up in the Kermadecs and we’re on our way home

For the last couple of days we have been sampling near L’Esperance Rock.

Here is an insight into what Auckland University’s whale research team is up to in The Kermadecs.

Over the last few days the “dive team” have been recording corals, fishes, urchins and other invertebrates from the shallow waters (0-30m) surrounding Raoul Island to complement the biodiversity records from the deeper ocean collected by the other scientists onboard.