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We are boldly exploring our unknown Ocean to excite interest and inform the wise stewardship of our planet.

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Seeking Salt Fingers in the Tropical Atlantic
In the northwestern equatorial Atlantic, the water column is highly stratified, with warm, salty water sitting atop cooler, fresher, nutrient-rich waters carried northward from the Antarctic by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). These conditions make the region a hotspot for salt finger mixing, a fine-scale process in which heat and salt are exchanged across density gradients, leading to waters sinking and rising in a beautiful, swirling motion. Scientists suspect that these salt fingers transport essential nutrients for plankton growth, such as nitrate, to the surface, thereby fueling ecosystem productivity and potentially influencing carbon export to deeper waters. Drs. Joseph Gradone, Corday Selden of Rutgers University, U.S., and an international team will venture to the Tropical Atlantic to collect essential data on salt fingers and their role in nutrient transport from the deep sea to surface waters. Scientific evidence suggests that salt fingers in this region are intensifying as waters warm and their salinity changes, driven by the ocean absorbing excess heat from the atmosphere. Gradone and Selden hypothesize that this trend is amplifying salt-finger mixing and potentially offsetting predicted ocean productivity loss in the region by carrying more nutrients to the surface and altering ecosystem structure. Using R/V Falkor (too)’s CTD and rosette, two coordinated gliders, and an untethered, autonomous oceanographic vehicle called the Vertical Microstructure Profiler 5500, they will improve our understanding of the physical dynamics of salt fingers and their impact on primary productivity in this region of the global Ocean.
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In the coming years, our expeditions will explore understudied regions around all seven continents in our global Ocean.

Latest Expedition

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Seeking Salt Fingers in the Tropical Atlantic
In the northwestern equatorial Atlantic, the water column is highly stratified, with warm, salty water sitting atop cooler, fresher, nutrient-rich waters carried northward from the Antarctic by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). These conditions make the region a hotspot for salt finger mixing, a fine-scale process in which heat and salt are exchanged across density gradients, leading to waters sinking and rising in a beautiful, swirling motion. Scientists suspect that these salt fingers transport essential nutrients for plankton growth, such as nitrate, to the surface, thereby fueling ecosystem productivity and potentially influencing carbon export to deeper waters. Drs. Joseph Gradone, Corday Selden of Rutgers University, U.S., and an international team will venture to the Tropical Atlantic to collect essential data on salt fingers and their role in nutrient transport from the deep sea to surface waters. Scientific evidence suggests that salt fingers in this region are intensifying as waters warm and their salinity changes, driven by the ocean absorbing excess heat from the atmosphere. Gradone and Selden hypothesize that this trend is amplifying salt-finger mixing and potentially offsetting predicted ocean productivity loss in the region by carrying more nutrients to the surface and altering ecosystem structure. Using R/V Falkor (too)’s CTD and rosette, two coordinated gliders, and an untethered, autonomous oceanographic vehicle called the Vertical Microstructure Profiler 5500, they will improve our understanding of the physical dynamics of salt fingers and their impact on primary productivity in this region of the global Ocean.
Read More

From grants for caregivers to an artist-at-sea residency, our programs strive to deepen knowledge and inspire a connection with our planet’s life support system.

Latest Expedition

See all

Seeking Salt Fingers in the Tropical Atlantic
In the northwestern equatorial Atlantic, the water column is highly stratified, with warm, salty water sitting atop cooler, fresher, nutrient-rich waters carried northward from the Antarctic by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). These conditions make the region a hotspot for salt finger mixing, a fine-scale process in which heat and salt are exchanged across density gradients, leading to waters sinking and rising in a beautiful, swirling motion. Scientists suspect that these salt fingers transport essential nutrients for plankton growth, such as nitrate, to the surface, thereby fueling ecosystem productivity and potentially influencing carbon export to deeper waters. Drs. Joseph Gradone, Corday Selden of Rutgers University, U.S., and an international team will venture to the Tropical Atlantic to collect essential data on salt fingers and their role in nutrient transport from the deep sea to surface waters. Scientific evidence suggests that salt fingers in this region are intensifying as waters warm and their salinity changes, driven by the ocean absorbing excess heat from the atmosphere. Gradone and Selden hypothesize that this trend is amplifying salt-finger mixing and potentially offsetting predicted ocean productivity loss in the region by carrying more nutrients to the surface and altering ecosystem structure. Using R/V Falkor (too)’s CTD and rosette, two coordinated gliders, and an untethered, autonomous oceanographic vehicle called the Vertical Microstructure Profiler 5500, they will improve our understanding of the physical dynamics of salt fingers and their impact on primary productivity in this region of the global Ocean.
Read More

Experience the wonder of our global Ocean via immersive galleries of art, scientific discoveries, and film.

Latest Expedition

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Seeking Salt Fingers in the Tropical Atlantic
In the northwestern equatorial Atlantic, the water column is highly stratified, with warm, salty water sitting atop cooler, fresher, nutrient-rich waters carried northward from the Antarctic by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). These conditions make the region a hotspot for salt finger mixing, a fine-scale process in which heat and salt are exchanged across density gradients, leading to waters sinking and rising in a beautiful, swirling motion. Scientists suspect that these salt fingers transport essential nutrients for plankton growth, such as nitrate, to the surface, thereby fueling ecosystem productivity and potentially influencing carbon export to deeper waters. Drs. Joseph Gradone, Corday Selden of Rutgers University, U.S., and an international team will venture to the Tropical Atlantic to collect essential data on salt fingers and their role in nutrient transport from the deep sea to surface waters. Scientific evidence suggests that salt fingers in this region are intensifying as waters warm and their salinity changes, driven by the ocean absorbing excess heat from the atmosphere. Gradone and Selden hypothesize that this trend is amplifying salt-finger mixing and potentially offsetting predicted ocean productivity loss in the region by carrying more nutrients to the surface and altering ecosystem structure. Using R/V Falkor (too)’s CTD and rosette, two coordinated gliders, and an untethered, autonomous oceanographic vehicle called the Vertical Microstructure Profiler 5500, they will improve our understanding of the physical dynamics of salt fingers and their impact on primary productivity in this region of the global Ocean.
Read More

Science Team Resources

To help you plan for your expedition, this hub includes information about outreach, technical specifications for our robotic platforms, a list of lab equipment, information about accessing data repositories, and more.

Latest Expedition

See all

Seeking Salt Fingers in the Tropical Atlantic
In the northwestern equatorial Atlantic, the water column is highly stratified, with warm, salty water sitting atop cooler, fresher, nutrient-rich waters carried northward from the Antarctic by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). These conditions make the region a hotspot for salt finger mixing, a fine-scale process in which heat and salt are exchanged across density gradients, leading to waters sinking and rising in a beautiful, swirling motion. Scientists suspect that these salt fingers transport essential nutrients for plankton growth, such as nitrate, to the surface, thereby fueling ecosystem productivity and potentially influencing carbon export to deeper waters. Drs. Joseph Gradone, Corday Selden of Rutgers University, U.S., and an international team will venture to the Tropical Atlantic to collect essential data on salt fingers and their role in nutrient transport from the deep sea to surface waters. Scientific evidence suggests that salt fingers in this region are intensifying as waters warm and their salinity changes, driven by the ocean absorbing excess heat from the atmosphere. Gradone and Selden hypothesize that this trend is amplifying salt-finger mixing and potentially offsetting predicted ocean productivity loss in the region by carrying more nutrients to the surface and altering ecosystem structure. Using R/V Falkor (too)’s CTD and rosette, two coordinated gliders, and an untethered, autonomous oceanographic vehicle called the Vertical Microstructure Profiler 5500, they will improve our understanding of the physical dynamics of salt fingers and their impact on primary productivity in this region of the global Ocean.
Read More

History of Deep-Sea Exploration in the Phoenix Islands

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There is an old saying in science: We “all stand on the shoulder of giants

Before 2017, there were no significant deep-sea exploration efforts in the Phoenix Islands

Now, our current expedition has scientists from all three previous deep-water exploration expeditions on board to work in this area together, continuing our exploration and research of this unique location and its marine protected areas

The best analogy I know is to picture hiking up a 3-kilometer mountain on the darkest of nights with only a weak flashlight, and that is basically how we explore with an ROV. It would take months-to-years of continuous ROV operations like SuBastian to fully explore an entire seamount. So even though the Phoenix Islands are now one of the comparably more explored regions of the remote Pacific, with four deep submergence expeditions in the last five years, we are still only scratching the surface of the deep-sea life in the unique and special area of the ocean.

Randi Rotjan, Chief scientist, Tim Shank, Alexis Weinnig, Steve Auscavitch and Brian Kennedy watch the live video feed from the ROV SuBastian during a memorable dive, during which an impressive array of corals were seen on a deep-sea wall.

Metalagorgia coral with brittle star entwined, and possible egg case. The image was made at 1450 meters depth on an unnamed seamount in the Winslow reef complex on the Tokelau Ridge in the Phoenix Islands Archipelago by Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) SuBastian.