(waves crashing, seagulls
cawing)
If you go to the beach and
you walk to the water's edge
you think of yourself as being
at the edge of the United
States.
But you're not, because the
land underneath the ocean,
extending 12 miles out is land
that's owned by the United
States.
And the land on the bottom of
the ocean
extended 200 miles out is under
the direct control of the
United States.
So there's as much
underwater United States
as there is land United States.
(waves crashing)
[radio] Yeah, Fantail here.
Yeah, we're ready to get
started.
One of
the dominant features of
the Outer Continental Shelf
and the continental slope
in the Mid-Atlantic, that
area from Cape Hatteras
all the way to Canada, is that
the shelf
and slope are incised by
a huge number of canyons.
There are probably 15 or
so major named canyons
and probably as many as
30 or 40 smaller canyons.
We decided to
focus on two of the canyons.
Baltimore canyon, which is
off the coast of Maryland,
about 100 miles.
Norfolk Canyon is further south.
It's again about 100 miles
off the coast of Virginia.
One of the reasons that Bureau
of Ocean Energy Management
was interested in this area,
particularly off Virginia,
is that it's of interest
for energy exploration
and perhaps this area may be
opened up to
oil and gas lease sales
in the near future.
Deep sea corals provide the
complexity
and habitat for many of the
worlds fishes.
So I'm really interested in
understanding
what is that balance between
tapping into our resources
that we need, as a thriving
civilization,
but also protecting these
habitats.
These are areas where BOEM
is concerned with protecting.
And that's the bottom line for
the whole
crux of the project is to
locate,
to describe, and ultimately to
protect
these biological communities.
It's a small city at sea.
We function 24 hours a day,
and we're integrating a
lot of different kinds
of equipment, and a lot of
different kinds of expertise.
So this project was
important in a lot of ways,
in terms of collaboration.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy
Management
provided most of the
funding for the project.
The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
provided the ships, and ROVs,
the remote operated vehicles
that we used underwater.
And the US Geological Survey
provided
quite a lot of equipment and
personnel
that helped with the project
objectives.
When you look at a marine
ecosystem
you have to do it holistically.
Just like on land, every
component meets
with another component to form
the whole.
You can learn so much from
each other
and also with the different
disciplines.
I mean I'm mainly looking
at the sedimentology,
while others are looking at the
fauna,
but there is always a link
between all these disciplines.
In what ways have shipwrecks
and man-made objects
become an essential part of the
ecosystem,
and essential habitat for
fisheries.
And is that the case,
or is that not the case?
And then there's the geology.
What the canyons are shaped
like,
how that effects the
hydrodynamics,
how the sediment moves.
Who lives within the
canyon sediment environment
and what about the canyon
environment
influences who's living there?
How far can corals and their
offspring
disperse in the deep sea?
Is, basically, the deep
sea one continuous unit
and you can move canyon to
canyon,
or is each canyon going to
have its own unique fauna?
My work benefits the public by
expanding
our understanding of
biodiversity.
The whole spectrum of life are
in
the microbial communities
associated with these corals.
65% of the deep sea corals
live in
water depths greater than 50
meters.
But, fortunately, through
advanced technologies
such as remotely operated
vehicles or manned subs,
we've been exposed to this
amazing world
that lives below the light zone,
which we call the aphotic zone
where there's actually thriving
ecosystems
living in complete darkness.
The first year was simply
mapping the bottom of the ocean.
Mapping the canyons, mapping
the geological features
and also looking for and
mapping archaeological sites.
Very, very little of the
seafloor has been mapped.
Every scrap of land has
been mapped to some degree,
but we are still literally
blundering around in the dark,
often, with the deep sea, so
this is the very first step.
And those maps help us
tremendously
in trying to determine where to
deploy
our more expensive assets.
[radio] (inaudible)
[radio] Go ahead bridge.
[radio] We are on station
for the lander deployment.
And then there is
actually an observatory.
A little bit more.
Good. Move.
In order to really understand
what's driving these ecosystems,
and how the oceanography works
around them
we really need long term data.
Yeah, are you ready Mike?
Yup.
These platforms allow us to do
something
that is completely impossible,
impractical, with regular ship
time.
It's a stand-alone
object, so we can deploy it
and we can leave it for
a few days, but also
up to a year on the seafloor.
And, that's great because
then we can get data
not only of daily variability,
but also
of, like, weekly and
seasonal fluctuations,
because also in the deep sea,
you have seasonal fluctuations.
It's kind of like
sending kids to college.
You throw a lot of money in the
water
and you never know what's gonna
happen.
But the data that comes back is
information we couldn't
get by being out on a ship.
Alright,
get out of the snap-zone.
Yeah, that was tough, but it
went in.
(exhales) I'm tired.
We put
instruments on these landers,
we put them down on the seafloor
where they sit there and they
collect
high-resolution environmental
data
such as current speed,
temperature, salinity,
turbidity, a whole suite of
things.
We get to see, in that picture,
the type of environmental
variability
that actually influences the
animals that we're collecting.
The quick views, snapshots, of
what we see
when we're out on a research
cruise
is not necessarily what's
controlling an animals
distribution or its survival,
or its life history.
As soon as the sun comes up,
we'll be bringing up the first
lander.
They don't float more than about
two feet above the surface of
the water,
so especially if we have any
sort of seas,
we'll need help on all sides of
the boat
just looking for them.
It's been down for a year now.
So, more than a year.
I think a year and two days,
basically.
We have a year of data
(laughs), hopefully.
That's gonna be the next step,
to see if it really
recorded everything we want.
Yeah, there it is!
There, the yellow float.
I think it gets worse.
The more you do it, the
more nervous you become.
First, then you have
confidence in technique.
But, after a long time you
know what can go wrong.
[radio] Canyon, I
need just another minute
with (inaudible)
Roger, standing by.
It's not ranging on them at
all.
So it's trial and error.
It's the only way we can try,
throw it away then trying
for a couple of hours,
and then we give it up, gone,
lost.
Well, it's the risk of the
profession.
So, a little bit of crying, and
then starting all over again.
Exploration science is what
really drives my passion.
Making discoveries, going places
that people have never been.
Now this is the seep that
Barbara Hecker
photographed once or twice,
probably twenty years ago
and never published on it.
It was very vague and we
thought
"This is a massive canyon, we
have these
"old co-ordinates, we have a
depth range".
We didn't think we were going
to find it.
And really it's, with limited
ROV time it's a gamble.
You know, do you risk an
ROV dive and find nothing,
or do you spend an ROV
dive and potentially
find this wonderful new habitat?
These cold seeps have evolved
a very specific community
that identifies them from
all the other communities,
and of all the dives we've
made in Baltimore Canyon,
this is the only place
we, or anybody else,
has seen these dense
aggregations of mussel.
We're going to continue
to explore the canyon
to try to look for other seeps.
There's indications there might
be
methane activity in other
parts of the canyon.
And what a methane seep is,
is basically biologically
produced methane gas
bubbles up out of the sediments.
It's important because we know
that there
are communities of bacteria,
particularly,
that use the methane to produce
energy.
Other animals use those
bacteria,
so we have now an ecosystem
that's called a chemosynthetic
ecosystem.
Whereas most ecosystems on earth
are based in photosynthetic
ecosystems.
In other words, energy
produced by the sun.
So these are very important
biologically
because they're one of the only
types of animal life that we
know of
that are not dependent on
sunlight.
Prior to our cruises, there
was a ship
that went out, the Okeanos,
and using multibeam sonar
they were able to detect
bubbles being emitted from the
seafloor.
Bubbles.
We had
the first opportunity to
take an ROV dive down and
actually see this seep.
When we first started seeing
the indications of that seep
the first mussel shells,
the dead mussel shells,
it's like this excitement, you
know?
It's like, we did it, we've
got it, we're nearly there.
And then this field of
live mussels opens up,
and it just, it's a fantastic
feeling.
It may be the largest methane
seep
in the North Atlantic Ocean.
So, it's quite significant
discovery.
There were two sections of the
seep
that ran for almost over a
kilometer of length, each.
Our work has found that we
see really discrete communities
associated with these seeps,
thriving within the sediments
that differ from all the other
samples
that we've collected within the
cayons.
So these seeps are really
just unique habitats.
These ecosystems are
vulnerable because
the animals that live on
them can only live there.
They need that seepage,
they need those chemicals
they can't live anywhere else.
So, they're highly vulnerable
to any kind of damage.
Once you disturb the seafloor,
you take those animals away,
they may not come back.
These are Lophelia polyps.
This is the first time we've
found
this species in the canyon.
It's been reported from
Baltimore Canyon before,
but I don't think anybody's ever
taken any footage or seen it,
visually.
We really didn't expect to see
Lophelia.
That was just amazing.
It was a "Holy cow" moment.
We know that Lophelia is
further south.
It's been documented from
further north,
but these canyons were a gap in
the middle
that we have now filled.
We are collecting environmental
data,
so that we can try and
understand
the oceanography of the canyons.
We're collecting samples
for various projects.
Genetics, reproduction, varied
isotopes
food webs, there's lots of
different
objectives, scientific
objectives.
(oceanic music)
One of the best ways to
describe deep sea corals
is that they can be considered
old-growth forests of the deep
sea.
They grow in a shrub-like,
or tree-like fashion.
And, just as trees deposit
rings,
so do a lot of different
species of deep sea coral.
We can actually take the coral
the disc, and we can separate
the layers into individual
bands.
When we analyze the skeleton
of the deep sea corals
we're essentially going back in
time
on a sort of ring by ring basis,
or on a growth band by growth
band basis.
Basically we're taking
a layer of growth,
so a time period of that
coral's lifespan
and analyzing the chemistry
of the coral skeleton
and then interpreting that as
"What was the environment
like, at 200 years ago?
"What was the environment
like at 1,000 years ago?"
All over the world shipwrecks
form artificial reefs.
And those artificial reefs are
important parts of the
ecosystem.
And so BOEM not only wants to
understand
the historical importance of
the sites,
and the damage that's been done
to them,
but they also want to understand
the role of the wrecks
within the broader ecosystem.
We'll be visiting at least two
more
shipwrecks on this cruise,
and when we return to the lab
we'll process the material
and identify the animals
that we find associated with
shipwrecks
and compare them to the
surrounding substrate.
It'd be nice to get a similar
view
from the other side coming down,
and seeing all that fishing gear
right up against the bow.
Sure, why not.
We'll do it if you like.
The shipwrecks are important
for a number of biological
species.
The sites are major breeding
grounds for chain dogfish.
Ironically the dogfish use the
nets for their egg casings.
One of the things that's
interesting
is that there are grouper
species
that generally is considered
to be a southern species,
that are using these wrecks.
And that's a commercially
important species,
and a recreationally important
species.
So these wrecks, in addition to
their historical
importance and significance
are providing a tremendous
amount
of habitat for animals.
Ooh, see the mola mola?
Sweet.
We expected that Baltimore
and Norfolk Canyon would be
fairly similar to each other.
They aren't very far
apart geographically
but there's also a chance that
with
the channeling of water and
currents
within a canyon that each
canyon could be fairly unique.
The origins of these canyons
is from when sea level was lower
and rivers deposited sediment.
That's still happening today
where we're getting transport
of sediment
both from the rivers, and
the continental shelf.
And, with the sediment
comes organic matter,
which is ultimately the
food for these corals.
I didn't believe that there
would be much difference
between the corals that live
in these two different canyons.
So there were a couple of things
that kind of surprised me when
we actually
got to the canyons and
were doing this work.
The first thing is, not all of
the species of coral that
we found in one canyon
were found in the other canyon.
We basically looked
at two octocoral species
and found absolutely
contrasting patterns
of connectivity between those
two canyons.
We're seeing really distinct
differences
between Baltimore and Norfolk
Canyon,
in terms of the communities
that are living there,
in terms of the sediment,
fauna, they aparently
are related to the organic
material
that's being supplied to the
seafloor, their food source.
One of the things that we
found in Baltimore Canyon
was the existence of what
we call a nepheloid layer.
And this is a layer
within the water column
that consists of organic
material that
is very,very fine and sort of
floats.
Basically there's a lot
of particulates in the water
and it was really concentrated
at this one particular depth
and so "Oh, well maybe that's
why
"there were so many corals
there".
I hadn't thought of that
previously.
The presence of that nepheloid
layer
has a very strong influence
on the benthic community
beneath it.
So this was actually
advantageous
because it gave us two canyons
that
were morphologically simliar
but one that had a very
different regime
in terms of organic input.
We had some very significant
findings
to come out of this project.
We found over 125 species
of fish in the canyons
based on our video analysis
and our trawl sampling.
We found about 9 species,
maybe more after we
analyze the data, that were
new records for this area.
They hadn't been reported
from the Mid-Atlantic before.
One was even from as
far north as Greenland.
Most of the fisheries surveys
are based on trawl surveys,
and those trawls can only
operate in smooth, sandy
bottoms.
We're collecting data in areas
where people have been unable
to sample
so we're getting a lot of
information
that people just didn't have at
all,
about fish communities, about
habitat, about invertebrates.
A whole range of things.
One of the things that's
happening in ocean resource use
is that everybody's moving
deeper.
As we use up resources
that are easy to get to
we're gonna start exploiting
resources
that are more difficult to get
to,
which includes an increasing
part of the deep sea.
The kind of projects we do
in the deep water canyons
helped us to understand
what our impacts may be.
If we know what animals are
important,
and what habitats are
important to those animals
we can understand what
the results might be
of removing those
habitats, or damaging them.
So what that means is,
the science of understanding
the environment that's impacted
by any development, has to move
quickly.
And, we're constantly
trying to play keep-up,
if not catch-up, with
the demands for energy
and energy exploitation.
And so studies like
this are very important
because they provide the
policymakers,
and the politicians,
and the decision makers
with the kind of information
they need
to help the nation fulfill
its energy needs and energy
requirements.
