#almostcoolerthan

May the flapjack be with you today. #maythefourth 

This fluffy flapjack was captured on camera snooping around one of our smart boulders or benthic event detectors (BEDs). MBARI engineers designed the rough-and-tumble BEDs to measure the near-seafloor conditions inside an underwater sediment gravity flow. 

These boulder-like instruments rest on the seafloor and contain a package of motion-sensing tools. They were engineered to replicate the behavior of boulders in sediment gravity flows while collecting information about their own motion. These rugged devices can collect data within the densest part of a sediment gravity flow, where most of the mass is being carried. Buried BEDs have an acoustic homing beacon so they can be recovered by one of MBARI’s remotely operated vehicles or an autonomous vehicle, such as a Wave Glider, which can wirelessly download the data.