The Deep-Sea Podcast

50 episodes listed below

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Deep-sea science with bite and field dirt.

The gist

The Deep-Sea Podcast treats the ocean floor as active scientific terrain, not a vague blue mystery. Its conversations move from hadal pressure and giant single-celled organisms to sampling limits, live-streamed ROV dives, and the messy realities of shipboard work.

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About The Deep-Sea Podcast

The Deep-Sea Podcast is oceanography from people close to the work. It does not treat the deep sea as a backdrop for wonder alone. The show follows the instruments, specimens, dives, ships, and arguments that turn darkness into evidence. Its register is informal and sharp, but the scientific standards stay high. Episodes often begin with a concrete puzzle: a ray filmed deeper than expected, a sampling method that misses whole communities, or a single-celled organism large enough to trouble easy assumptions. From there, the conversation widens. A discussion of trawls becomes a lesson in bias, because nets, landers, traps, cameras, submarines, and baited systems each reveal a different cross-section of life. A hadal-zone episode becomes a reflection on pressure, baseline data, natural history, and the awkward phase where frontier science has to become conventional science. The show is especially good at explaining why uncertainty is not failure. Sometimes the right answer is that an image is not enough, or that a decades-old depth record cannot be checked cleanly. That caution gives the livelier moments more force. There are plenty of those. Research travel goes wrong, field seasons blur together, and serious taxonomy may sit beside dry jokes about academic gowns, ship heat, and life at sea. The Pressurised format trims the main feed into short, direct science briefings, while the longer conversations keep the human sprawl around the research. Guests bring specialist depth on fish distributions, hadal biology, giant protists, live-streamed exploration, and deep-sea rays and skates. The show also pays attention to public access, especially the communities that form around live ROV dives from groups such as Schmidt Ocean Institute, Nautilus Live, and NOAA Ocean Exploration. Its strongest through-line is methodological humility. The deep sea is not unknowable, but it is easy to misread with the wrong tool. The Deep-Sea Podcast makes that lesson entertaining, specific, and unusually memorable.

Made for: For curious science listeners who enjoy marine biology, exploration technology, fieldwork stories, and expert conversation with rough edges left intact. It especially suits people who like evidence, caveats, and strange animals more than simplified nature-show awe.

What sets it apart: The show is led by working deep-sea specialists who can move from shipboard anecdotes to sampling theory without losing pace. Its Pressurised episodes add a concise route into the same subjects for listeners who want the scientific point fast.

In their own words

A couple of deep-sea scientists talk everything deep sea! Interesting facts, recent news, myth-busting and interviews with the most interesting people we know.

Why you'd press play

Deep-sea animals don't automatically explode at the surface; your assumptions might.

Press play if you want

  • hear Tom Lindley and Alan Jamieson explain what pressure actually does to deep-sea animals
  • find out why nets, traps, and cameras can give you different pictures of the same seafloor
Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
hadal zone biologydeep-sea sampling methodsfish distributions and trawlingROV livestream explorationgiant testate protistspressure and animal adaptationresearch vessel fieldworktaxonomy and specimen limits

Talks about

Best episodes of The Deep-Sea Podcast

Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.

PRESSURISED: 067 – Deep-Sea Career Spotlight with Dr. Nigel MerrettApr 10, 2026

Nigel shows why deep-ocean science depends on sampling the same world in more than one way.

Nigel's conversation makes a clear case that sampling is not a side issue in deep-ocean science, but the ground everything else rests on. The host recalls a last trip at sea aboard the RRS Discovery in March 2001, watching Nigel launch a large bottom trawl, before the focus…

Deep-Sea Career Spotlight with Dr. Nigel MerrettMar 21, 2026

A marine career moves through whales, tuna, Zanzibar, and the hard realities of life at sea.

This Deep Sea Podcast episode traces a marine career from an early fascination with fish through a long whaling voyage from Newcastle to Liverpool, then into tuna and marlin work in Zanzibar.

PRESSURISED: 066 – Hadal Zone Master Class with Professor Alan JamiesonFeb 15, 2026

A brisk Hadal Zone tour that moves from underworld etymology to the pressure-driven logic of deep-sea life.

The Deep-Sea Podcast's pressurized single-episode cut treats the Hadal Zone as a field still taking shape in real time. Professor Alan Jamieson begins with the language around depth, moving through Hades, Bathio, Abyssal, and Hadal, then uses pressure to reset assumptions about…

Hadal Zone Master Class with Professor Alan JamiesonJan 31, 2026

A clear, grounded look at how deep-sea discoveries move from first sighting to evidence that can hold.

The Deep-Sea Podcast frames extreme depth, harsh conditions, and technical limits as the setting for a larger question: how frontier science becomes conventional science.

PRESSURISED: 065 – Giant Testate Protists with Professor Andrew GoodayJan 18, 2026

A measured deep-sea discussion of giant single cells, heavy minerals, and the uncertain role of barite in their structure.

Pressurized turns its attention to one of the deep seafloor's stranger overlooked subjects: giant single cells that can grow beyond 20 centimeters and build shells from assorted materials.

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Episodes

  1. 1

    PRESSURISED: 067 – Deep-Sea Career Spotlight with Dr. Nigel Merrett

    Hidden gem

    Nigel Merritt traces a career from Britain's last Antarctic whale factory expedition to deep-sea fish surveys, museum work, and retirement alpacas.

    Apr 10, 2026·31m·1 clip
  2. 2

    Deep-Sea Career Spotlight with Dr. Nigel Merrett

    Hidden gem

    The Deep-Sea Podcast episode "Deep-Sea Career Spotlight with Dr.

    Mar 21, 2026·58m·2 clips
  3. 3

    PRESSURISED: 066 – Hadal Zone Master Class with Professor Alan Jamieson

    Hidden gem

    Pressurized with Alan Jamieson focuses on the Hadal Zone below 6,000 meters, where trenches, fracture zones, troughs, and basins create isolated habitats.

    Feb 15, 2026·45m·2 clips
  4. 4

    Hadal Zone Master Class with Professor Alan Jamieson

    Hidden gem

    The Deep Sea Podcast episode centers on Professor Alan Jamieson's hadal-zone master class, with Tom Lindley setting up the interview after a news roundup.

    Jan 31, 2026·1h 19m·2 clips
  5. 5

    PRESSURISED: 065 – Giant Testate Protists with Professor Andrew Gooday

    Hidden gem

    The Deep Sea Podcast Pressurized focuses on giant testate protists, especially xenophyophores, foraminifera, and gromids on the deep-sea floor.

    Jan 18, 2026·42m·2 clips
  6. 6

    Giant Testate Protists with Professor Andrew Gooday

    Hidden gem

    Andrew Gooday describes xenophyophores whose shells can exceed 20 centimeters despite being constructed by single-celled organisms.

    Jan 9, 2026·1h 7m·2 clips
  7. 7

    PRESSURISED: 064 – Cephstravanganza with Professor Kat Bolstad

    Hidden gem

    At the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Kat Bolstad reports from the 2025 Cephalopod International Advisory Council Symposium in Okinawa, attended by about 250 delegates.

    Dec 20, 2025·1h 10m·2 clips
  8. 8

    Cephstravanganza with Professor Kat Bolstad

    Hidden gem

    At the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Kat Bolstad reports from the triennial cephalopod symposium in Okinawa, Japan.

    Dec 6, 2025·1h 55m·2 clips
  9. 9

    PRESSURISED: 063 – Bioluminescent Symbiosis with Margaret McFall-Ngai

    Nov 15, 2025·38m
  10. 10

    Bioluminescent Symbiosis with Margaret McFall-Ngai

    Nov 7, 2025·1h 11m
  11. 11

    The Deco-Stop: 004 - No Word for Ocean with Yakup Niyazi

    Oct 3, 2025·38m
  12. 12

    PRESSURISED: 062 – Mythbusting Ai with Tyler Greenfield

    Sep 16, 2025·38m
  13. 13

    Mythbusting AI with Tyler Greenfield

    Sep 8, 2025·1h 33m
  14. 14

    PRESSURISED: 061 – Trench nutrient cycling with Ronnie N. Glud

    Aug 16, 2025·32m
  15. 15

    Trench nutrient cycling with Ronnie N. Glud

    Aug 3, 2025·56m
  16. 16

    PRESSURISED: 060 – Mesophotic Reefs with Yi-Kai Tea

    Jul 17, 2025·31m
  17. 17

    Mesophotic Reefs with Yi-Kai Tea

    Jul 7, 2025·1h 8m
  18. 18

    PRESSURISED: 059 - eDNA with Georgia Nester

    Jun 15, 2025·32m
  19. 19

    eDNA with Georgia Nester

    Jun 6, 2025·1h 4m
  20. 20

    PRESSURISED: 058 - Antarctic ice-seabed interactions

    May 9, 2025·25m
  21. 21

    Antarctic ice-seabed interactions

    May 3, 2025·57m
  22. 22

    PRESSURISED: 057 - A peek under the ice

    Apr 14, 2025·32m
  23. 23

    A peek under the ice

    Apr 7, 2025·1h 17m
  24. 24

    PRESSURISED: 056 - Colossal squid

    Mar 14, 2025·26m
  25. 25

    Colossal squid birthday special

    Mar 7, 2025·1h 10m
  26. 26

    PRESSURISED: 055 - Antarctic Fishes

    Feb 15, 2025·32m
  27. 27

    Antarctic Fishes

    Feb 8, 2025·1h 17m
  28. 28

    PRESSURISED: 054 - Going to Antarctica

    Jan 10, 2025·30m
  29. 29

    Going to Antarctica

    Jan 3, 2025·52m
  30. 30

    PRESSURISED: 053 - Deep-water corals with Di Tracey

    Dec 13, 2024·31m
  31. 31

    Deep-water corals with Di Tracey

    Dec 6, 2024·57m
  32. 32

    PRESSURISED: 052 - Blackwater diving

    Nov 8, 2024·31m
  33. 33

    Blackwater diving

    Nov 4, 2024·1h 8m
  34. 34

    PRESSURISED: 051 - The great Australian deep with Todd Bond

    Oct 11, 2024·26m
  35. 35

    The great Australian deep with Todd Bond

    Oct 4, 2024·1h 9m
  36. 36

    Tonga trench special

    Sep 13, 2024·42m
  37. 37

    Squidtember with Kat Bolstad

    Sep 6, 2024·25m
  38. 38

    PRESSURISED: 049 - Chimaeras with Brit Finucci

    Aug 9, 2024·28m
  39. 39

    Chimaeras with Brit Finucci

    Aug 2, 2024·1h 7m
  40. 40

    PRESSURISED: 048 - Deep-sea sharks with Justin Cordova

    Jul 12, 2024·29m
  41. 41

    Deep-sea sharks with Justin Cordova

    Jul 5, 2024·1h 3m
  42. 42

    PRESSURISED: 023 – Keeping deep-sea animals with The Monterey Bay Aquarium

    Jun 28, 2024·30m
  43. 43

    PRESSURISED: 047 - The depths of Lake Baikal with Marianne Moore

    Jun 14, 2024·29m
  44. 44

    The depths of Lake Baikal with Marianne Moore

    Jun 7, 2024·1h 9m
  45. 45

    PRESSURISED: 022 - Live-streaming the deep with Kasey Cantwell

    Kasey Cantwell discusses the excitement of deep sea exploration and how live streaming allows anyone to witness discoveries in real time.

    May 24, 2024·29m
  46. 46

    PRESSURISED: 046 - Deep sea rays & skates with Will White

    Will White discusses the discovery of a deep sea ray at over 3,000 meters and the challenges of confirming deepest records.

    May 10, 2024·30m
  47. 47

    Deep sea rays & skates with Will White

    Dr.

    May 3, 2024·1h 7m
  48. 48

    PRESSURISED: 021 - Deep sea images and AI with Kakani Katija

    Kakani Katija discusses her transition from marine survey work to academia and her fascination with the Robiolander system for observing deep-sea animals without killing them.

    Apr 26, 2024·28m
  49. 49

    PRESSURISED: 045 - Hagfish with Doug Fudge

    A marine biology professor discusses the unusual biology and evolutionary significance of hagfish, including their slime and predator-prey interactions with sharks.

    Apr 12, 2024·29m
  50. 50

    Hagfish with Doug Fudge

    Apr 5, 2024·1h 11m