Greetings from Viosca Knoll, out in the Gulf of Mexico (and happy Blog Action Day). If you google Viosca Knoll, you might find a bit about the cold water coral reefs which are found here. Most of what you’ll find, though, are prospecting reports from oil companies – and the oil companies’ close friends in the US Government, the Minerals Management Service. For all the thousands of oil platforms in the Gulf, the drilling, industrial fishing, and the oil spills, it’s pretty shocking how little we know about the Gulf beyond where the oil reserves are.
So it’s pretty exciting to be out here on the Arctic Sunrise piloting a submarine, working with scientists to improve our understanding of the hidden, vulnerable, and mysterious deep sea. Unfortunately, at the same time we are trying to learn what makes deep sea corals and their neighbors tick, we have to study how they respond to exposure to oil from the BP Horizon disaster. So much oil and dispersant were released into the Gulf that almost everything alive here was exposed to it, including deep sea corals.
This morning, we dropped a benthic lander in Viosca Knoll, in about 1400 feet of water. Picture a lunar lander, and you won’t be far off – especially when you remember that we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the deep sea. Next year, Steve Ross (University of North Carolina Wilmington) and Sandra Brooke (Oregon Institute of Marine Biology/Marine Conservation Biology Institute) plan to retrieve the lander and collect new data on coral growth and reproduction, and on what location conditions have been like for these animals since the lander was deployed.
This afternoon I took the submarine down to look for the lander. Dropping down through well over a thousand feet of water is quite an experience. As a SCUBA diver, I can’t get enough of it. I became a diver because I wanted to see what was down there deeper than where I could get by holding my breath, and now the submarine gives me a chance to see what things look like far below the depths accessible by SCUBA.
We didn’t find the lander today, but we’ll try again tomorrow. In the meantime, it’s hard to stay too disappointed about having a chance to explore the depths of the Gulf of Mexico. There were galaxies of tiny sparkling creatures on the way down, and fields of colorful anemones waiting on the bottom, as well as purple sea hares, soft corals, beardfish, crabs, sea urchins, crinoids, and more.
I love the ocean, and have spent as much time studying it or just plain enjoying it as possible. I guess I realize that some people will always be willing to sacrifice the health of our oceans for their own personal gain, but I will never understand or tolerate politicians who give corporations like BP permission to put our oceans at risk. Together, we can hold our elected officials accountable and make sure the disaster in the Gulf is not repeated.
Tomorrow, we will be back on the seafloor, surveying deep sea coral reefs and taking another look for our benthic lander.
For the oceans –
John H
Watch John on Submarine Detective
