Ocean Science

Marine ecologist Dr. Jeremy Jackson and a team of researchers conducted an in-depth study of the effects of a 1986 oil spill on the coast of Panama. In this video, Dr. Jackson discusses the study, its lessons for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and major threats to the ocean today. More about the Gulf oil spill can be found in our Gulf oil spill featured story.

In the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill, what is the effect of oil on invertebrates like jellyfish, clams, crabs, sea stars, and plankton? The scope of the damage is more easily observed among birds and large animals, but Dr. Chris Mah, an invertebrate zoologist at Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, suggests that what we don’t see may be more widespread and devastating. To learn more about sea stars, urchins, brittle stars, sea cucumbers, feather stars, and other spiny skinned animals, visit the Ocean Portal at www.ocean.si.edu.

Dr. David Pawson talks about what it is like to be on a dive in one of the deep-sea submersibles. In the 1980s Pawson was a member of a team of four scientists who made more than 150 submersible dives off Florida and in the Caribbean, to study the echinoderms. They discovered about 200 species of these beautiful animals, about thirty percent of which were new to science. The team has published many papers describing these animals and their lifestyles, and they continue to conduct laboratory studies of the specimens they videotaped, photographed, and collected. Perhaps the most astonishing dive was made near Nassau in the Bahamas, where the team found about fifty automobiles piled up on the seafloor! These old cars had been transported offshore on a barge and then pushed into the ocean; they inadvertently created an effective artificial reef, and they were covered in animals—sponges, deep-sea corals, sea whips, and more. More recently, Pawson has been conducting research on deep-sea sea cucumbers from the northern Pacific and the western Atlantic. Dr. David Pawson is an expert on echinoderms—sea cucumbers, sea urchins, and sea stars.

This video shows the a live image of the new eel (Protanguilla palau). This research was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B in the paper: A 'living fossil' eel (Anguilliformes: Protoanguillidae, fam nov) from an undersea cave in Palau by G. David Johnson, Hitoshi Ida, Jiro Sakaue, Tetsuya Sado, Takashi Asahida and Masaki Miya

How should you prepare for a hurricane? Students from Bay High School in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi--who were participating in the Third Student Summit on the Ocean & Coasts--created this instructional video to help show the importance of storm preparation and evacuation techniques. The students presented the video at the Student Summit, held at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC on February 15, 2011.

While conducting field work in Curaçao in 2011, Smithsonian researchers encountered trash along remote beaches and deep in the water column. This video gives a brief glimpse of some of the marine debris they found.

Take a deep breath and enjoy a sneak peek at the high-definition film by Feodor Pitcairn that will transport you into the realm beneath the waves. Can't get enough of the ocean? Check out the Smithsonian's Ocean Portal at ocean.si.edu!

Blog entry: It blew in for two solid days: a flotilla of plastic forks, soda bottles, rubber gloves, and other refuse. I tried to pick everything up off the beach, but when I turned around, you couldn’t tell that I had cleaned at all. When we went out in the boats, we had to go slowly in order to dodge the debris. Eventually the tide came in and swooped it all away. I was at the Smithsonian Marine Research Station on Carrie Bow, a small island on the southern end of Belize. My colleagues and I discussed where the garbage could be coming from. This area is very remote and the trash was blowing in from the open ocean. Based on the wood and pumice (volcanic rock that floats) that was mixed in with the plastics, our best guess was that a heavy rainstorm washed the debris into the ocean. On the way back from a short dive, to collect some data, I approached a mass of plastic floating in the water. I still had plenty of air in my tank and battery time on the video camera, so I dropped into the water and sunk below the debris. From underneath, it looked like a huge, swirling monster. The bright colors of the plastic were backlit from the sun above. I swam up to the trash slowly and shoved my camera straight into it. Underwater photography is difficult because everything moves: the subject and the shooter. Once I was inside this swirling mass of trash, I concentrated solely on trying to stay steady. It was only later that I was able to really see what I filmed. I was struck by the contents – all items I personally use at home and mostly plastics. I tried to think of how I could rid my house of plastic. I even contemplated buying a cow (so I would never need to buy another plastic container of milk or yogurt). This experience transformed me in ways that I hope watching this video will transform you. I now see plastics everywhere and try to avoid them. I have plasticware in my house, but I reuse it. If I see plastic trash on the street, I go out of my way to pick it up. No, that is not my plastic water bottle rolling around on the sidewalk, but I will pick it up because it is my planet.