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| The ship’s remotely operated vehicle, the 9,200-pound Deep Discoverer, is carefully lowered into the water. (Art Howard/for NOAA) |
By PETER BAKER/ecoRI News contributor
Officials in the Mid-Atlantic region are considering much-needed
protection for some 39,000 square miles of U.S. territory, an area larger than
Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey combined. But it’s not a place many have
visited. It’s part of the country’s ocean realm stretching 200 miles from
shore, beyond shallow coastal waters.
Fortunately, the deep-sea explorations of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) vessel Okeanos Explorer and its unmanned
submersible are bringing parts of this vast, largely unknown area into view.
Aaron Kornbluth, a staff member of The Pew Charitable Trusts,
recently had a chance to participate in an Okeanos expedition to Norfolk
Canyon, about 75 miles east of Virginia Beach. Kornbluth got a firsthand look
at the challenges of studying the ocean bottom and the rewards of seeing what
lives there.
He told me about the skill the crew needs to maneuver its undersea
cameras in the pitch-black darkness and crushing pressure of the depths, where
strong currents and overhanging cliffs threaten to rip the submersible from its
nearly 26,000-foot-long cable.
Yet the ship’s robotic submersible, Deep Discoverer, not only
reaches those depths, but it also allows scientists on land to interact with
the crew and to observe the dives in real time.
That collaboration came to life during the Norfolk Canyon dive
as a deep-sea corals expert from Florida State University and a squid expert
from the Smithsonian helped identify species when they appeared on the video
feed. As Deep Discoverer descended from 1,600 to 2,300 feet on the southern
slope of the canyon, bright-pink paragorgia — “bubble gum” — coral appeared
from the gloom, some of the largest ever observed off the Atlantic Coast,
according to experts.
Squids dive-bombed the ocean floor, causing plumes of silt and
clay to cascade slowly down the steep canyon wall — behavior that a biologist
said could be a mating ritual.
Kornbluth also saw how important these areas are as habitat for
other animals, including swordfish, hake, cusk, red crab and sea stars. In one
memorable moment, a monkfish ambushed some unsuspecting squids
in front of the camera. The video capabilities allow the public to watch as the
scientists make fresh discoveries.
“My 92-year-old grandmother was able to watch a live stream of
the dive from her home in Vermont,” Kornbluth said. “This is the new age of
ocean exploration.”
The Okeanos,
which is homeported in Davisville, R.I., and other deep-sea exploration vessels
are expanding our knowledge of these poorly understood, fragile and unique
environments. Okeanos expeditions this year have also provided live images from
the floor of the Gulf of Mexico and the canyons along the edges of the
continental shelf of the Atlantic Coast, revealing a bizarre “asphalt volcano" and previously
unknown gardens of deep-sea corals.
What starts out as video footage of the ocean bottom eventually
winds up in species databases and spatial models of seafloor habitats that are
being used to inform ocean management.
In fact, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council is using
the information from the explorations as it considers protecting a vast swath
of the seafloor and the deep-sea coral communities dwelling there. These areas
constitute critical habitat for numerous species, including shrimp, squids, monkfish, hake, tilefish and flounder. They also contribute to marine
biodiversity and to the overall integrity of ocean ecosystems.
Given their remoteness, ocean canyons such as Norfolk may seem
to be immune to human influence, but there’s growing evidence of pollution and
the impacts of deep-sea fishing, especially from bottom trawls. We have
observed only a small fraction of America’s underwater landscape, and it should
be protected as we continue to explore.
Peter Baker directs The Pew Charitable Trusts’ U.S. ocean
conservation efforts in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.