Bioluminescence in the deep sea is omnipresent, yet imagery of the phenomenon is scarce. While this dearth in observations can be largely explained by sampling effort, the camera technology available for in situ, low-light imagery is also a limiting factor. Recent work by Phillips et al. (2016) describes the application of a Hamamatsu ORCA Flash2.0 V2 sCMOS camera to detect light-stimulated luminescence in the water column. This system was recently employed to observe bioluminescence on a deep-sea “black smoker” hydrothermal vent.

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Video
A video of the hydrothermal chimney collected by ROV Hercules is available on The Oceanography Society's YouTube Channel.

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