Deep Sea Exploration
Earth's deep sea is the last frontier. Our lab has been fortunate to explore new life here, including using the human-occupied Alvin submarine and deep-sea robot Jason II.
"The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever" - Jacques Cousteau
Selected Published Works
The organisms living in the deep abyssal ocean are novel and remain largely undescribed. This was an exciting project at a potential manganese nodule mining zone characterizing the novel diversity of mobile larvae of benthic species (meroplankton). We found larval assemblages to be highly diverse and spatially patchy.
Kersten O, ... , Jungbluth MJ, ..., Goetze E. (2019). Larval assemblages over the abyssal plain in the Pacific are highly diverse and spatially patchy. PeerJ, 7, e7691. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7691
Jungbluth SP, Amend JP, Rappé MS (2017). Metagenome sequencing and 98 microbial genomes from Juan de Fuca Ridge flank subsurface fluids. Scientific Data, 4, 170037. https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.37
Novel microbial assemblages inhabiting crustal fluids within mid-ocean ridge flank subsurface basalt
Jungbluth SP, ..., Cowen JP, Rappé MS. (2016). Novel microbial assemblages inhabiting crustal fluids within mid-ocean ridge flank subsurface basalt. The ISME Journal, 10(8), 2033–2047. https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2015.248
Marlow JJ, ..., Jungbluth SP, ..., Girguis PR (2021). Carbonate-hosted microbial communities are prolific and pervasive methane oxidizers at geologically diverse marine methane seep sites. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 118(25). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2006857118
McVeigh D, ... , Jungbluth SP, et al. (2018). Characterization of benthic biogeochemistry and ecology at three methane seep sites on the Northern U.S. Atlantic margin. Deep-Sea Research. Part II, Topical Studies in Oceanography, 150, 41–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2018.03.001