MarVeL Workshop held in Okinawa, Japan

Thanks to co-conveners Satoshi Mitarai (OIST) and Hiromi Watanabe (JAMSTEC) for a successful MarVeL Workshop (http://marvelworkshop.whoi.edu). Our 35 participants included biologists, physical oceanographers, and geo-scientists from Japan, U.S., Canada, and France.

Mariana Vent Larvae (MarVeL) Workshop planned for May 10-11, 2012

A Mariana Vent Larvae (MarVeL) Workshop is planned for May 10-11, 2012, in Okinawa, Japan, sponsored by the Catalyzing New International Collaborations program at NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering and by Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. Link to NSF Award Abstract
I will post more information as soon as available.

Article in InterRidge News about our Mariana vent cruise

The 2011 InterRidge News just came out, and you can read about our cruise YK10-11:
Beaulieu, S.E., S. Mills, L. Mullineaux, F. Pradillon, H. Watanabe, and S. Kojima (2011) International study of larval dispersal and population connectivity at hydrothermal vents in the southern Mariana Trough. InterRidge News 20: 50-54.
Click HERE to access the PDF on the InterRidge website

Attended NOAA's Science and Exploration Workshop for the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument

In September I attended NOAA's Science and Exploration Workshop for the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument. The workshop was held in association with the Oceans'11 IEEE/MTS conference at which I presented our work from last year's YK10-11 cruise: "International study of larval dispersal and population connectivity at hydrothermal vents in the U.S. Marianas Trench Marine National Monument," by Stace E. Beaulieu, Susan Mills, Lauren Mullineaux, Hiromi Watanabe, Florence Pradillon, and Shigeaki Kojima, abstract no. 110422-040.

Welcome to our 2011 Summer Student Fellow

This summer, we welcome Thomas Sayre-McCord as a Summer Student Fellow in our lab. Thomas is a physics major at the University of North Carolina. He is applying his interests in biophysics to the analyses of larval swimming velocities. Here, Thomas has one computer running Matlab routines and a second computer displaying a video frame grab from experiments on last year's Mariana cruise.

Presentation at AGU Fall Meeting

Earlier this month, I attended the AGU Fall Meeting and presented the first results of our Mariana vent larval study. Click HERE for our abstract #OS13G-07, "Larval abundance and dispersal at deep-sea hydrothermal vents in the southern Mariana Trough." At the end of the talk, I showed a short video clip of live larvae, which you can view HERE (wmv file, ~4MB). Happy new year!

Jaa, mata (see you again)

The photo at left shows Guam on the starboard horizon, as we were returning to land on Sept. 15th. After our gear was safely unloaded onto a flat-bed truck, Susan and I caught a bus with our colleagues to the Guam Hilton. We had the good fortune to relax for a day, including snorkeling in the warm clear waters, and then we had to say goodbye. In Japanese there are so many different ways to say goodbye, but I am hoping that we can say "Jaa, mata" (jahh-mah-tah), which is an informal way of saying "see you again." This cruise was an incredibly enriching experience - both scientifically and culturally. Susan and I look forward to working on our samples and data back at home in Woods Hole.

Tomomi Ogura