Alan John Jamieson OBE is a Scottish marine biologist, engineer, explorer and author, best known for his deep-sea exploration and study of life at the deepest places in the oceans.^[1] He is known for extensive use of deep-sea landers^[2] to establish the maximum depth and community dynamics of many organismal groups, as well as the discovery of many new species and highlighting the presence of anthropogenic impacts at full ocean depth. During the Five Deeps Expedition, and follow on expeditions in 2020, he completed various dives in a manned submersible to some of the deepest places in the world. He has published over 100 scientific papers^[3] and participated in 65 deep-sea expeditions.^[4]

Jamieson was born in Scotland and grew up in Largs in Ayrshire, and then Longniddry in East Lothian. He attended Preston Lodge High School in Prestonpans.^[5] From 1995 to 1999, he obtained a BSc Honours degree in Design for Industry at Robert Gordon University's Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen. In 2000 he joined the newly formed Oceanlab at the University of Aberdeen as mechanical technician where he also completed a part time PhD entitled Autonomous lander technology for biological research at mid-water, abyssal and hadal depths,^[6] graduating in 2004. During his time in Aberdeen he worked, studied and published under Professor Imants Priede. Following two postdoc positions he became a lecturer and then senior lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, based at the Oceanlab field station in Newburgh. In 2016 he joined the School of Marine Science and Technology at Newcastle University. In 2019 he founded the company Armatus Oceanic, focused in marine technology R&D, expeditions and science dissemination. Through Armatus Oceanic, he co-runs the Deep Sea Podcast with Dr Thomas Linley.^[7] In April 2021 he joined the University of Western Australia as professor and founding director of the Deep-Sea Research Centre.^[8]

Jamieson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to marine biology, subsea engineering and expoloration.^[9]

Jamieson's early scientific work focussed largely on technology-driven studies into deep-sea fish behaviour and pelagic bioluminescence. He completed two EU funded postdocs, the first a sediment dynamics project named COBO (Coastal Ocean Benthic Observatories^[10]), that involved the design and construction of a deep-water Sediment Profile Imaging camera (SPI), the second was an astrophysics project named KM3NeT (Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope), where he surveyed deep-water pelagic bioluminescence across potential sites for an underwater neutrino telescope^[11] in the Mediterranean.^[12]

During his time at Oceanlab, he began a series of projects relating to exploring the hadal zone (depths exceeding 6000m). He designed and constructed two full ocean depth rated landers to carry baited cameras, traps and other sensors to depth of nearly 11,000m.^[13][14] Between 2007 and 2013 he participated in and often led a series of seagoing expeditions that included the first finding of the taxonomic order Decapoda at hadal depths (including the deepest prawn ever found^[15]), the first video of fish greater than 6000m,^[16] filmed the deepest fish in the southern hemisphere,^[17] the deepest fish ever filmed^[18] (at the time), the deepest eel ever found,^[19] and the first footage and discovery of the 'supergiant amphipod' at hadal depths.^[20] These were achieved across a series 11 expeditions spanning the Japan, Izu–Bonin, Mariana, Kermadec, New Hebrides, Tonga and Peru–Chile trenches in collaboration with the University of Tokyo's Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute (AORI; Japan) and the National Institute for Water and Atmospheric research (NIWA; New Zealand). These expeditions also saw the discovery of a hadal amphipod species later to be named after him: Princaxelia jamiesoni.^[21]

In 2014, Jamieson was a co-Principal investigator on the joint US–UK–NZ Hades projects: Hades-K to the Kermadec Trench and Hades-M to the Mariana Trench. The former was the first expedition to use the HROV Nereus to full scientific capacity. The vehicle was lost during this expedition,^[22] but by using spare parts and scrap metal, Jamieson constructed a full ocean depth lander, known as the Wee Trap, that days later captured the deepest fish ever caught, Pseudoliparis swirei.^[23] On the second expedition, to the Mariana Trench, he set a new record for the deepest fish (the 'Ethereal snailfish' at 8145 metres deep) and the first video footage of the supergiant amphipod, Alicella gigantea.^[24]

From 2015 to 2017, Jamieson led the ‘PharmaDEEP’ expedition to the South Shetland Trench in Antarctica on the Spanish naval ship Hesperides and participated in the Japanese RV Shinyo Maru expedition to the Mariana Trench in 2017, with the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology for the Discovery Channel documentary Deep Ocean, Descent into the Mariana Trench,^[25] produced by NHK.

Some of his recent papers includes the deepest cephalopod (octopus) and deepest squid ever filmed,^[26][27] description of the DSV Limiting Factor^[28] full ocean depth submersible, a review of the deepest places in each ocean,^[29] and a contribution to an industrial scheme to eliminate plastic pollution with Andrew Forrest of the Minder Foundation.^[30]

A replica of Jamieson's third Hadal-Lander was constructed and used in a sequence in Episode 2 (The Deep) of the documentary Blue Planet II. The Hadal-Lander is seen descending into a CG model of a subduction trench, alongside some footage obtained during Hades-K and Hades-M.

He was a guest presenter at New Scientist Live at the ExCel London centre in September 2017 [n38] where he also joined BBC World Service's Science in Action live panel show with Roland Pease.^[31] He presented at Ocean TEDx KingsPark on 1 December 2021, and took the audience into the deepest ocean where few humans who have dived, including 11 km down in the Mariana Trench.^[32]

In 2022 he led an expedition to the Diamantina Fracture Zone in the East Indian Ocean where his team discovered the deepest fish off mainland Australia at a depth of 6177 metres.^[33]

His zoological author abbreviation is Jamieson.^[34] He has co-authored the description of 12 new species.^[35]

Notable publications

Scholia has a profile for Alan J. Jamieson (Q44462701).

In 2015, Jamieson published a book entitled The Hadal Zone, Life in the Deepest oceans^[42] with Cambridge University Press, which was nominated for the Royal Society of Biology Book of the Year award (2015), and endorsed by film director and explorer James Cameron. He wrote the forewords for John Quentin's 2021 Global Watch fiction novels, The Galathea Legacy and the Vernadsky Ultimatum.^[43]

Notable publications include a paper entitled Bioaccumulation of persistent organic pollutants in the deepest ocean fauna,^[44] published in Nature ecology & evolution, Fishes of the hadal zone including new species, in situ observations and depth records of Liparidae,^[45] published in 2016 in the journal Deep Sea Research Part I.

Jamieson was part of the team that led to the discovery of microplastics at full ocean depth,^[46] and was involved in a recent campaign with the WWF (Call it plastic) to name a hadal species Eurythenes plasticus.^[47][48]