ExploreEarth

INTRODUCTION

We have always been fascinated by the deep sea. The depths of the ocean are dark, mysterious, and most intriguingly out of our reaches. For the vast majority of human existence, we have only been able to imagine what deep-sea landscapes cover and outlandish beasts roam in the great abyss. Now, through the miracle of satellite technology, we finally have a good idea of the mountain ranges, canyons, and landscape of the world below the surface, but it’s hardly a glimpse of the strange animals that inhabit this unexplored frontier.

The deep sea makes up over 90% of the earth’s habitat, yet it is so unexplored that we know more about the surface of the moon than the depths of our oceans. Project Explore Earth will help change this by exploring remote and unexplored regions of our ocean’s depths.


ABOUT ME

My name is Paul J Clerkin, and I am a graduate student at the Pacific Shark Research Center of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in California. I specializes in rare and deep-sea sharks and I am studying new species and life histories of poorly understood shark species. My thesis work focuses on the sharks that I encountered during two surveys in the Southern Indian Ocean in 2012 and 2014, a total of 126 days at sea. I have also conducted research for other projects aboard ships in the Bering Sea, South East Atlantic, Philippines Sea, and across the Pacific. I am currently describing some of the 15 new species he discovered in the Indian Ocean and planning his next expedition.

During the last year of my master’s project, I traveled to 5 different countries to explore the lives deep-sea animals with an emphasis on strange deep-sea sharks. I intend to finish my degree later this year and spend most, if not all of 2016, exploring remote regions of our planet to study the strangest deep-sea sharks in the depths of our ocean.

Throughout my career I have enjoyed working with local fishers to locate and discover sharks. These fishing groups have both the infrastructure to make an expedition possible and generations of fisher knowledge previously untapped by the scientific community. Cooperation with fishers has truly been the key to many successful expeditions.

This “guerrilla” research has been a wonderful way to study sharks on a small budget, but it has the drawback being fairly low tech. Although these trips are in some of the world’s most remote and exotic locations we lack the equipment necessary to study sharks in their natural deep-sea habitat. Project Explore Earth would change all that.


ABOUT THE PROJECT

Project Explore Earth is geared entirely toward exploring our ocean through deep-sea camera observation. This method will give us access to areas that are not (or cannot be) sampled by traditional fishing gear, and it will be minimally invasive, leaving only negligible impact on the environments they explore. It will also allow us to observe and collect data about the lives and behaviors of animals that have never been studied in their natural environment. This innovative project is a totally think-outside-the-box venture, pairing traditional fishers’ knowledge with high-tech remote imaging equipment. Furthermore, all Explore Earth deep-sea cameras and apparatuses will be machined by the project leader at our laboratories’ workshop using reclaimed material and recycling available material when possible in order to minimize costs. By building this sophisticated equipment ourselves out of scrap we will be able to give shark scientists and shark fans more bang for their buck; completely cutting out the cost of manufacturing. Once the camera, light, and battery modules have been constructed they can be fixed to a variety of arrays including: deep-sea landers, descender devices (to insure survival), shark mounts (shark cam!), and surface-based observation systems.

All funds will go directly to material needed to explore remote and poorly studied regions of our deep ocean.  Any excess funds will be used to build more deep-sea cameras and construct and advance the apparatuses needed to further explore the depths of the ocean. Video and images then will be made available through as many conduits as possible including, but not limited to: YouTube, our website, twitter, Instagram, Facebook, scientific publications, outreach talks and events. The focus of Explore Earth is innovation, research, and education. Please help us fund this project so that we can explore and share our world’s beautiful and unique deep oceans.


Outputs / Media / Communication

www.Sharkuniversity.org

Twitter.com/sharkuniversity

Instagram.com/sharkuniversity

Youtube.com/allthingssharksci

Snapchat: @sharkuniversity

https://www.facebook.com/pauljclerkin

https://www.facebook.com/sharkuni