Deep, soft-bottom sediment covers a majority of the Earth’s seafloor. Working with Dr. Jim
Barry over the years, I became acquainted with many beautiful creatures and discovered
interesting ecological interactions in this habitat. I thought this should be shared with the
public, as well as resource managers that are making decisions about what activities are
allowed in this habitat. We met with artist Kelly Lance, shared the concept and provided
images of all the animals that we wanted included in the poster. Erica Burton, another
collaborator in our deep-sea research, contributed her taxonomic expertise to the project.
Save The Earth provided financial support and California State University provided
administrative support. This was one of those “back burner” projects we squeezed in on
weekends and evenings, so the iterations on species and habitat composition continued for two
years. Kelly began with sketches in charcoal, then the artwork was painted with water color.
We developed an identification key (artwork in itself) for those wanting to learn the names of
deep-sea organisms. Robert Mazurek worked with us distributing the final product. He had the
brilliant idea that any profits from sales will go to providing free posters to resource managers
and students. “Deep-sea life on the soft seafloor” is a science and art collaboration that we are
all proud of, and we hope you enjoy it!
In gratitude to NOAA’s Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute, California Marine Sanctuary Foundation, Save the Earth, and California State
University Monterey Bay.
~ Dr. Andrew DeVogelaere, 2024
Animal key for the deep-sea poster
