SeaCubes recovered!

SeaCubes attached the MFN of an OOI mooring

Cibicidoides Wuellerstorfi foraminifera attached to the outer mesh of the SeaCube.

The primary goal of my joining the Endurance 17 expedition was the deployment and recovery of SeaTubes and SeaCubes respectively (discussed here). I am happy to report that all deployments were completed successfully and the SeaCubes deployed this spring have been recovered and prepared for processing in our lab at Oklahoma State University!

Moorings at ~80 and 575 meters depth each had two SeaCubes attached by zip-ties as shown in the picture above. After carefully snipping the ties, the cubes were removed and taken into the ship’s lab. Here each cube had the mesh removed from the frame and put into ziplock backs and placed into a -80 freezer. The 3d printed boxes inside of the cube frames were left attached to protect them and the whole frame was also placed into the freezer for storage. The processed cubes will be sent back to the lab at Oklahoma State where they will be assessed under a microscope where foraminifera can be identified, counted, and removed.

I was able to use a low-power microscope on board the ship to confirm that there are indeed foraminifera colonizing the outer mesh!

It is always exciting to see that the cube has been successfully colonized and that we will have data on what species are populating the epibenthic realm and in what quantities. This data, combined with the exceptional oceanographic data from the OOI moorings, can help us better understand Foraminifera environmental preferences and to apply that to the fossil record and paleo-oceanographic proxies.