The cold, dim and dark depths of the deep sea are home to an astounding array of weird and wonderful looking creatures.
These animals have evolved sensory systems that are specifically adapted to life in the dark. Our key aims are to discover, observe and document new life forms from the deep sea and their associated sensory systems. As part of the Deep Australia ARC Linkage project, and in collaboration with industry partners Australian Oceanographics, Deep OceanQuest, Harbour Branch and Blue Turtle Engineering, we have developed an array of custom made, state-of-the-art marine technology that enables us to sample organisms, measure environmental parameters and capture in situ footage of deep sea organisms like never before, for example Giant Squid. Please see our “research tools” for more information about our custom made deep-sea equipment, including camera platforms, trawl nets and submersibles.
To date, the Marshall group has been involved in numerous collaborative deep-sea expeditions to the Coral Sea (MV Phoenix, MV PMG Pride, RV Cape Ferguson), Osprey Reef (MV Undersea Explorer), Tasman Sea (RV Southern Surveyor), Southwest Pacific (RV Southern Surveyor), abyssal plain of the Central Pacific (RV Seward Johnson), Ogasawara Islands off Japan (RV Alucia), Costa Rica Trench (RV Sonne), Peru-Chile Trench (RV Sonne), Salt domes and hydrocarbon seeps of the Gulf of Mexico (RV Seward Johnson), Florida Straits (RV Seward Johnson, Orange Valley and Natal Basin off the coast of South Africa (RV Sonne). On these expeditions we have discoverd a number of new species and have amassed an extensive collection of deep-sea animals.
sensoryecologyuq.com 