Skip to content

A scarred octopus

Deep-sea octopuses (Graneledone boreopacifica) sometimes lurk among the basalt cliffs formed by underwater eruptions at the summit of Axial Seamount (off the coast of Oregon) like this scarred individual seen during the 2022 OOI Regional Cabled Array Operations and Maintenance expedition.    

Read More

Hydrothermal vents- active and dormant

Two hydrothermal vents at Axial Seamount visited by the ROV ROPOS during the OOI Cabled Array O&M cruise show the difference between an active “black smoker” vent hosting chemosynthetic life and a dormant vent covered mostly in white bacterial mats.

Read More

Work in the lab

Leg 1 Co-Chief Scientist (and former Grays Harbor College Prof) Julie Nelson helps VISIONS’22 students from UW run chemical analyses on the verification water samples collected at the Axial Base site.

Read More

Biofouling challenge

Top view of the OOI Oregon Offshore Shallow Profiler Mooring shows the difference between a new set of instruments (top), 8 years spent at 200m (center) & 1 year of biofouling (profiler pod at bottom). All sensors were swapped out over the last 24 hrs.

Read More

Flytrap anemones and glass sponges

During the first dive of the OOI RCA O&M cruise, the ROV visited an underwater microphone (hydrophone) tripod on the seafloor at the OOI Slope Base site. The instrument is surrounded by flytrap anemones, some attached to the stalks of glass sponges.

Read More

ROPOS ready

The Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility (CSSF) Remotely Operated Vehicle ROPOS was launched August 9 on the first dive (R2201) of the OOI RCA Operation and Maintenance  cruise. It is carrying a tool basket containing an instrument tripod to be deployed at the Slope Base site (2900 m depth).

Read More

Students aboard

Leg 1 VISIONS students on the 2022 OOI RCA O&M cruise pose on the bow as the R/V Thomas G. Thompson steams out of Newport. Students work with UW researchers, engineers, and the ship’s crew to learn all aspects of marine research, ship ops, and life aboard a research vessel.

Read More

Mobilization underway

Mobilization and loading of the ROPOS ROV on the R/V Thomas G. Thompson for Leg 1 of the OOI Regional Cabled Array operations & maintenance expedition began on  August 8th. View live video here. 

Read More

VISIONS’22 blog

You can keep up with daily activities during RCA VISIONS’22 by watching a live stream video and reading daily blogs written by both the science party and student participants.  Be sure to bookmark this site and check back often! This 45-day expedition beginning August 5 promises to be exciting.  This highly complex operation will be…

Read More

Headed to sea soon

The Regional Cabled Array team soon goes to sea on their 43-day cruise on the R/V Thompson using the ROV ROPOS, which will make at least 40 dives in coastal waters, at methane seeps, and on the largest underwater volcano off the Pacific coast – Axial Seamount.

Read More