In Search of Giant Squid

Earlier this year, Dr. Clyde Roper lead a team of researchers back to the depths of Kaikoura Canyon to explore the mysteries of this incredible region. An expedition webpage is available featuring information about the expedition, daily journals and pictures from the expedition site in new zealand, glimpses behind the scenes of the techniques being used including the marvelous one-person submersible Deep Rover, that the expedition scientists used to explore down to depths of nearly one-half mile below below the surface. Click on the picture of the Deep Rover to follow the 1999 Expedition.

If you wish, you can also relive the experiences during the first expedition.

During February and March of 1997, Dr. Clyde Roper of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History led an international team of scientists on An Expedition into the Depths of the Last Frontier. The team used a variety of techniques to study the inhabitants of Kaikoura Canyon, a deep, undersea chasm located off the coast of New Zealand's South Island. This ecosystem, though poorly understood, contains some of the most remarkable creatures in the seas; the sperm whale and Architeuthis - the Giant Squid.

In addition to the extensive background material contained here and the updates by Dr. Roper and his colleagues from the expedition site that are posted in the Expedition Journal portion of the Crew section as we receive them, the National Geographic Society presented material live from Kaikoura at their fantastic online website. Together, these two sites worked to provide you with the most comprehensive information about the Expedition into the Depths of the Last Frontier. Wherever there is additional information about a particular subject that can be found on the National Geographic Society website, you can find it by clicking on the Kaikoura icon.

Smithsonian Giant Squid Overview Page

gene carl feldman / gene@seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov