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FLORIDA FRONTIERS Exploring Unknown Deep-Sea Biomedical Resources MISSION DISPATCH 8 • May 31, 2004 Dispatch by Mark Schrope - @Sea Photo-Journalist We left the Keys last night and are now back at the Miami Terrace, once again within view of the city. Tonight the real scientists were kind enough to give me a slot in the aft chamber of the Johnson-Sea-Link I (JSLI) for one of the last dives of the expedition. 
Like all dives, this one really began long before the expedition with Co-chief Scientist John Reed scouring all available literature on the bottom topography for the region, including survey information dating as far back as the 1800s. The goal is simply to find areas with the high relief and steep angles that are indicators of the rock the corals and sponges we are after need to live. The only way to actually find out whether there is much or anything of interest in a given spot, though, is to go there. Using what basic information could be gathered to choose general targets, Reed used the ship's fathometer to create a detailed map that allowed him to choose an actual dive location. This morning the ship ran a transect of the area at a relatively high speed of 8 knots, which allowed us to map a large area, but with little detail. Then before the dive we went back over one of the same areas to get a more detailed map. 
Reed chose a spot with 350 feet of vertical relief, going from 1,450 feet at the bottom to about 1,100 feet at the top. Though the map shows a steady climb, we expect that we will instead find stepped terraces and other features just as you might find gullies and such on a mountain though a topographical map would show steady contours. At about 5:00 p.m. I climb into the chamber of the submersible, which is a cylinder about seven feet long and three feet high, along with Jimmy Nelson of the sub crew. The view from here is nothing compared to that from the front sphere, which is completely separate from us, but it is spectacular nonetheless--especially if you've never been spoiled by a front seat dive. The chamber is cramped, but there's enough room to spread my legs out, and there's a porthole on either side of where I sit. At first the crew lowers the sub only partially into the water until Nelson verifies that the hatch is properly sealed with no water coming in. Then we are lowered the rest of the way in and begin the dive at about 5:15 p.m. We descend at about 80 feet per minute, and there's not much to see at first. At about 350 feet it looks like twilight outside, and by 750 it's getting pretty dark. At 1,000 feet pilot Phil Santos turns on the lights and I see a tiny larval fish swim by and hear the high pitched tinny sound of the underwater telephone system Santos uses to communicate with the ship. Some larger but still small fish swim by, including a silvery hatchet fish with its eyes glowing from the sub lights. Next a curious but seemingly wary 1-inch fish I don't recognize makes a tentative zigzag toward the porthole. 
At 1,422 feet I hear Dr. Thomas Brueck, the FAU scientist in the front sphere, say through the headset I've donned,
"Looks like we're there," and soon after I can see the bottom myself, about 20 minutes after we started.
Santos tells the ship that we're on the bottom giving the depth, temperature (8.54 degrees C), visibility (30 to 35 feet), and current information (about 3/10 of a knot from the north), repeating each bit of datum twice to make sure it is understood clearly. The bottom here is flat and I see mostly small branch of stylaster coral, then Santos turns the sub sideways so that I can see the steep wall we are about to explore. As we make our way up, Brueck spots a piece of coral he wants to collect and the sub jerks and lurches a bit as Santos puts us in position. The motors whir loudly as he uses the robotic arm to grab a sample. Then, a shark about 7 feet long swims in front of the sub. I can see it through a video monitor feeding from the front camera, but not through my porthole. 
As we make our way up the incline, the array of life changes. At about 1,200 feet we see some huge bushes of coral,
mostly dead, some six feet high. A few feet farther up Brueck happily spots a gorgonian, or sea fan, the type of organism
that is his lab's research focus. Sitting still on the bottom as Santos expertly gathers the sample, it feels like we're
simply sitting in a small room on the seafloor. I try in vain to video the black-bellied rose fish that swims repeatedly
past the porthole each time I do not have the camera ready.
At 1,100 feet I can see more exposed rock, and sponges are becoming more abundant, the stylaster coral less so. The rock formations are almost as interesting to me as the life, even if that's not what we're after. Around 1,000 feet there are places the rock ledges overhang dramatically, with their dark undersides looking like the entrances to caves. The current is sweeping particles past us more quickly now. Under one overhang there is another gorgonian we can't get to, but Brueck soon spots others to collect. We've been on the bottom about an hour by this time. 
Next we come up over a ledge to a fairly barren flat area. Throughout the dive we've seen scattered fish and crabs, and
here I see two white crabs squaring off against each other with claws raised high. A bit farther we cross one of the many
communications cables that traverse this region coming out of Miami and Ft. Lauderdale.
Brueck compares this more barren section to the surface of the moon and says that perhaps we should look for a wreck instead. He said it as a joke but then we do in fact come upon what looks like a metal or wooden section of a boat's gunwale. Could have been garbage dumped by someone, but it was long enough at about 15 feet that I'll stick to the wreck story. Nearby I spot a drinking glass and later a plate, but that's not enough to support the wreck theory because unfortunately, garbage is no rarity even in the deep sea. Once Brueck spotted something from a distance he thought looked like an interesting sponge only to find that it was a clay skeet-shooting pigeon fired from a cruise ship. 
At 7:30 p.m. Brueck decides it's time to head for the surface. The first few minutes of the ride up are as interesting
as the seafloor. We turn out all the lights in the chamber and I look out into the black water at the constellations of
bioluminescence created by the myriad creatures in the ocean's midwaters that produce their own chemical light. Most that
I can see give off small points of light, but a few put on marquis-like shows that look like miniature fireworks displays.
Scientifically the dive was not one of the best. We only found a few samples to bring back to the lab because there was not much diversity in the organisms we came upon. But such results are an inevitable part of exploration, and there have been more than enough surprisingly fruitful dives to make up for this one. And, because this was my first biomedical submersible dive, I was just happy to be there and experience a habitat few people will ever have the opportunity to see. Center of Excellence in Biomedical and Marine Biotechnology The Center of Excellence was created with $10 million in state funding in 2003. It is based at FAU and combines the expertise of Harbor Branch, Florida International University, Nova Southeastern University, the Smithsonian Marine Station at Ft. Pierce, and several private companies. The overall goal for the Center of Excellence is to promote the discovery, development, and commercialization in Florida of new medicines and other products. Center funding is intended as seed money to further expand Florida's emerging marine biotechnology industry over the next two years with the goal of attracting longer-term funding from federal and commercial sources. Besides funding one expedition per year, Center of Excellence money is being used to:
2) design and build a high-definition camera system that can be carried on an AUV to map new seafloor sites 3) to purchase equipment that will greatly enhance member institutions' ability to rapidly and accurately analyze the pharmaceutical potential of new chemical compounds.  |  |
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