Ocean Networks Canada’s NEPTUNE Observatory is extraordinary in its ability to provide long-term, continuous data about the seafloor collected from a wired network of sensors and seafloor instruments. Long-term data is critical in understanding seafloor habitats like the continental shelf, slope, submarine canyons, abyssal plain, and spreading centers and how they are changing. To learn the variety of instruments incorporated into the observatory check out the photo albums Ocean Observing Toolbox and Wiring the Seafloor. This album focuses on the types of research questions which researchers are working to answer about the extreme environments of the seafloor – specifically around the hydrothermal vent fields of Endeavour rift valley. 

Album contributed by Science Communication Fellows Shannon Donovan and Alexander Havens.