Deep Sea Whale Fall Near Clayoquot Slope

During our NA161 #ONCabyss expedition with Ocean Networks Canada, we returned to the site of a whale fall near the Clayoquot site that we’ve visited in the past. ROV Hercules gathered impressive footage of the skull and vertebrae of this skeleton, as well as the benthic fauna that have made their home on top of it. This boney buffet provides an abundance of nutrients for organisms living near the seafloor. 

While here, we continued photogrammetry efforts on the site by reproducing surveys performed in 2012, 2020, and 2023 to take high-resolution videos of the entire whale skeleton. Photogrammetry video surveys provide data on decomposition rates, helping us understand how whale falls support deep-sea ecosystems. This site was originally discovered in 2009 by an expedition led by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and ONC and OET have been observing it since 2012.