Diving Deep: Rachel Lauer Explores Ocean Secrets

Despite living in landlocked Calgary, Rachel Lauer spends a lot of time exploring the deep ocean.

As a marine hydrogeologist, she has joined several expeditions in recent years.

Lauer was part of a team of international scientists who discovered a new deep-sea octopus nursery at a low-temperature hydrothermal vent offshore of Costa Rica in June 2023.

She then travelled to Haida Gwaii in 2024 to join the Coast Guard vessel J.P. Tully for part of the NorthEast Pacific Deep-Sea Exploration Project (NEPDEP).

The Canadian expedition explored and monitored deep-sea ecosystems in and around existing, planned, and potential marine protected areas in the Pacific Ocean.

It included a team of scientists, communicators, and marine planning professionals from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Council of the Haida Nation, Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council, universities, and non-profit institutions. They are using a remotely operated vehicle, ROPOS, to conduct science and capture images of the deep sea.

She was back on another expedition this summer.

Lauer’s research focuses on seamounts, which are large underwater mountains rising from the ocean floor.

She uses geothermics, or heat-flow measurements, to investigate the hydrogeology (i.e. plumbing) of the ocean crust and how that’s connecting these structures at the seafloor that are basically extinct volcanoes. They are formed through magmatic processes, and in some cases, they are still very warm. That can facilitate this process of hydrothermal circulation that connects two or more seamounts to each other under the sediments.