Our team continued to build on more than three decades of innovation and discovery.
2021 by the numbers
415combined days at sea
78AUV missions
1,653.7kilometers mapped
150ROV dives
1,022hours of ROV video
36floats launched(SOCCOM/GO-BGC)
82publications
133presentations
73mentorships
18news stories
31video productions
405,452total social media followers
Numbers to date
8.5 millionvideo annotations
165,000machine learning video localizations
150terabytes of soundscape data
240new species
President and Chief Executive Officer Chris Scholin reflects on how MBARI’s continued commitment to give the ocean the attention it deserves.
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On the Horizon
In the coming year, MBARI has some exciting new and continuing projects including, a new observatory to study blue whales, a return to the Arctic to document changes to the deep seafloor, and welcoming two new principal investigators.
Blue whale ecology
MBARI’s Blue Whale Observatory will leverage a variety of tools to understand the behavior and ecology of endangered blue whales and their krill prey.
Blue whale ecology
Returning to the Arctic
MBARI technology will play a critical role in an expedition to the Canadian Beaufort Sea this summer.
Returning to the Arctic
Technology for ocean exploration
A new marine robotics lab seeks to make ocean exploration more nimble—and accessible.
Technology for ocean exploration
Marine snow
Flurries of organic material sinking to the deep sea can illuminate the missing link in the ocean’s carbon cycle.
Marine snow
Weird and Wonderful
The deep sea is home to countless interesting, weird, and wonderful discoveries. This year we feature an alluring fish, delicate drifting siphonophores, worms that gracefully swim, and others that love extreme heat.
An alluring fish
A fish fishing for its own food might seem like an unusual choice, but this method is suited perfectly to the deep sea.
An alluring fish
Delicate drifters
Even with the same basic blueprint, the diversity of siphonophores is spectacular.
Delicate drifters
Swimming with a worm
This ethereal worm is a graceful swimmer that “dances'' through the midwater with the rhythmic paddling of its swimming legs.
Swimming with a worm
Some worms like it hot
Instead of being devastated by volcano-like conditions, these worms thrive in the scalding hot, mineral-rich waters at deep-sea vents.
Some worms like it hot
2021 Award Recipients
Kelly Benoit-Bird
Outstanding Associate Editor Limnology and Oceanography
Elected to the Executive Council of the Governing Board Acoustical Society of America
Chris Scholin
Lockheed Martin Award for Ocean Science and Engineering presented by the Marine Technology Society