Centre for Deep Sea Research

Outreach is a lot of fun when the lights go out 👀. We took part in Night at Aquarium on February 20 here in Bergen sharing all we know about Arctic deep sea worm forests and chemosynthesis to curious kids and families 🐟🪱

Two prominent politicians from Miljøpartiet De Grønne (MDG) visited CDeepSea here at the University of Bergen earlier this week and got a tour of our deep-sea sample collection: Frøya Skjold Sjursæther (stortingsrepresentant) and Thor Haakon Bakke (Gruppeleder MDG i Bergen).

Mari Heggernes Eilertsen presents her work to an audience seated in an auditorium. On a screen, a slide shows deep-sea ecosystems and reads "Chemosynthetic micoorganisms are found free living or as symbionts".

A group of people sitting at a table, drinking coffee and chatting.

What an amazing conclusion to this year's guest seminar series! Mari H. Eilertsen @mariheilertsen.bsky.social from @cdeepsea.bsky.social delighted us with a talk on deep-sea chemosynthetic ecosystems, and continued the discussion over a festive coffee break 🌊✨ Thank you for your visit!

Onboard the Kronprins Haakon icebreaker this week, up near the Malloy Deep in the Arctic. 🚢

📷 Daniel Albert, GoNorth/SINTEF

During a dive on the GoNorth25 cruise, bones were spotted on the seafloor and scooped up with nearby sediments, shown here being sifted for macrofauna by Tom Alvestad (UiB, at the microscope). David Rees takes out the bone samples from the ROV's sample drawer.
📷 Daniel Albert, GoNorth/SINTEF

Mari and Christian from the CBE Arctic group were onboard the Extreme25 research cruise to the Arctic last week. (Photos: Extremes_UArctic Project)

Group of scientists in front of ocean

The Bergen Bathysphere Symposium took place this week. We had a strong crew from CDeepSea including Hassan, Petra, Renee, and Morgane who helped make it all happen. 🙌 Big shoutout to Christian, Maja, Mari, David and Morgane for leading inspiring workshops and discussions! 💬 (📸Bergen Bathysphere)

Images from the Aurora vent field on the Gakkel Ridge from the new paper by Profs E Reeves, J Jamieson and collaborators. The vent field was sampled during the 2021 NFR HACON project and represents a significant scientific and technological achievement.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🌊 A new paper on the Gakkel Ridge highlights the increasing accessibility of ice-covered Arctic seafloor for geological investigations. The study presents the first detailed, ROV-based geochemical survey of hydrothermal vents beneath permanent, drifting Arctic sea ice.
👍 The paper is open access.

Read more about the work of the CBE Arctic team here: research here: cbearctic.com, and about Brenda on the image alt-text (or on our instagram: www.instagram.com/p/DE2sbtGs1n...)

Thank you to anyone involved!

Co-authors
Runar Stokke @deepseastokke.bsky.social
Ida Helene Steen
Emily Olesin Denny
Håkon Dahle
Achim Mall

Associated with
@cdeepsea.bsky.social
@unibergen.bsky.social
@asm.org
Norges forskningsråd
Trond Mohn Research Foundation @mohnfoundation.bsky.social

Also celebrating our researchers and post-docs who continue to push the boundaries of science.

Celebrating our PhDs today - hailing from 10 different countries and all calling Bergen, Norway home for now.

6 pallets of equipment was delivered to Helsingborg last week where the icebreaker “Oden” is preparing for its expedition to the Polar Basin. The Centre for Deep Sea Research has teamed up with Swedish collegues to set up a seafloor observatory close to the Ultima Thule vent field.

The first #MSS2025 afternoon session was all about enzyme evolution 👏 @paolalaurino.bsky.social - live from @oistedu.bsky.social, Ida Helene Steen @cdeepsea.bsky.social and Ioannis Riziotis @ebi.embl.org shared their latest work, using very different approaches to this fascinating topic 🤩

Pint of Science was awesome tonight! Highly recommend you make a note for (mid)May 2026 to check out your local chapter! 💯

Last week we held a symposium on Loki’s Castle hydrothermal vent field at the University of Bergen together with SVF. The first part of the day was for students in grade 9/10 and we had some interesting questions including «Would you spend the rest of your life in an underwater submersible?» 🫧🐙🐟🌊

A time lapse of the remotely operated vehicle Ægir 6000 being deployed through the «moon pool» on the deck of the icrebreaker Kronprins Haakon. CDeepSea is leading a research cruise up in the Arctic this month and this ROV is how we explore the deep ocean.

That’s the one ✔️

Some beautiful atacamite - a copper mineral sampled during a research dive along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.

Scientists from the Centre for Deep Sea Research are on a research cruise in the Arctic at the moment, seen here prepping some equipment for an upcoming ROV dive. 💪

Some of the little outreach extras that make all the difference to budding scientists - stickers and colouring pages were a big hit last night. Perennial favourites.

Outreach - such an important part of communicating science and also a really fun part (once you are all set up and ready to go!). This was yesterday at Night at the Aquarium here in Bergen.

This is Ægir 6000 with its tether management system (right), that enables it to descend safely under sea-ice while still connected to an ice-breaker 🚢, and the control centre container (left). This all shipped out yesterday from Bergen en route to Svalbard for an upcoming Arctic research cruise.

Always super interesting to hear about the research and latest findings of colleagues- today post-doc Irina Zhulay shared her work on the biota of the Boyd seamount along the Arctic mid-ocean ridge.

Bright blue cells showing coral restoration in Hong Kong

A coral restoration project at the Hoi Ha Wan designated Marine Park in Hong Kong. (Taken on a field trip this week as part of the Deep-Sea Biology Symposium.)

We are very excited to announce that the next Deep-Sea Biology Symposium will be held in Bergen 🇳🇴 in 2028!! 🥳

The conference will be a collaboration between the Centre for Deep Sea Research, the UiB Dept of Biological Sciences, the University Museum, Institute of Marine Research and NORCE. 🌊🪸🌋🫧🐟

A group from the Centre for Deep Sea Research have made the 8,830-km trip to Hong Kong! Brenda presented her poster on rissoid gastropods in Arctic CBEs today.

It’s the Geological Society of Norway’s Winter Conference here in Bergen.