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DISPATCH 6 | 06.08.2007 | "Sitting In The Trough"...But Only Temporarily The last few days have been a bit unsettling to some of our science party- swells are running 3-5 feet with occasional larger swells and a few of them have been looking a bit green and others are looking a bit tired from the medicine they are taking to combat seasickness. I awaken at about 04:00 to a fairly strong rolling motion of the ship- we call this "sitting in the trough". This is the kind of thing that can make the already queasy mariner lose their cookies. As the watch had just changed (this means new crewmen were driving the ship), I immediately thought that they were just letting the ship drift and that this is why we suddenly went from not too bad to yow, hold on! So I crawl out of bed to see if I can nicely ask the Chief Mate Tim Askew Jr., if we can maybe find a following sea or quarter off and keep those cookies where they belong. 
I get to the wheelhouse and what do I see, but
Priscilla Winder sitting at the
tracking computer and John Reed
is at the fathometer and they are running a transect. What? Its 4 AM for crying out loud!
After a mea culpa to Tim for thinking he was the culprit I stay up to help with the transect. It seems that when Tim
came on watch and drove the ship over the coordinates John had given him the night before (obtained from a low resolution
Multibeam Map), he saw that the bottom was flat as a pancake- we were expecting a bioherm with at least 300 foot relief
- but it was missing. Knowing that this wasn't a good thing, Tim got John up out of bed and they started looking for
the "missing" bioherm and thus the necessity of putting us in the trough. It turns out our coordinates were about a
mile off, but the Bioherm is there and we will dive it at 08:00. Thanks Tim for saving the day- I sure wouldn't want to dive on mud. I don't much like looking at mud.
Our dive this AM has Don Liberatore as submersible pilot, myself (Amy) in the front chamber as scientist observer, Jimmy Nelson in back as submersible crew and Jill Roberts as scientist observer in the aft chamber. Jill is a research assistant working in my chemistry group (but she has a Masters Degree in Marine Science so she probably knows more marine biology than I do). Our target depth is 1800 feet and we planned to drop on the east face of the feature and move to the west. The top of the feature is 1544 feet and it is 2330 feet across. When we reach the bottom, we are in sand, fine white sand as far as the lights of the submersible will penetrate. Don and I both think... oh no, the Bioherm is actually a sand dune. It wouldn't be our first time diving on a sand dune. That is part of exploration, you don't know what you will find until you look. We collect a sediment sample for our microbiology program and for the geologists and begin to move towards what looks like a rise that we can see on sonar. What's that? Rocks! Yeah! It's not going to be all sand. We begin to see huge black coral bushes and then a smaller unusual sea fan (Gorgonian soft coral). We stop to collect it. As we do, both Don and I see a plate like sponge out in front of us- could it be? It's Leiodermatium, a sponge that Jill has been working on for the past few years. She has purified out a new compound with some really interesting antitumor properties. We are wondering if this specimen will have the same chemistry or maybe something even better. We are pretty excited as this is the first time we found it this trip. Overall, we found many interesting specimens on this dive. A total of 15 specimens! This might be the record for the most samples collected on a single dive this expedition. Shirley will go back this afternoon and dive the other side of the feature. I bet she beats my record. This is a great site. Here is Jill's account. 
An Inimitable Adventure - Jill C. Roberts
We began our day waking up to the sweet smell of fresh baked cinnamon rolls. But there were to be no cinnamon rolls on this morning for the scientists diving in the submersible, as we prepared for a dive at a new deep sea site off the Florida Keys. Don Libertore was our submersible pilot and Dr. Amy Wright accompanied him in the front. Jimmy Nelson and I were in the back. As the submersible was launched off the Seward Johnson and we began to descend into the dark depths of the open ocean, excitement began to take hold. Excitement from wondering what types of organisms would be found and the understanding that we were going where "no human had gone before". We reached the sandy bottom at a depth of 1804 feet, where the temperature was 6.7 degrees C and a salinity of 34.9psu. As we approached the slope area, the terrain transformed into small boulders amid course sand. As far as could be seen in the lights of the submersible was a field of sea whips and small branches of Lophelia. Other organisms included black corals, Stylaster coral, bamboo coral, Plumarella (a soft coral), and encrusting sponges. Near the starboard window the water was alive with plankton, shrimp, and juvenile fish. In the distance were Silver Roughy fish with vertically compressed bodies and large eyes. 
We continued our journey up the slope, stopping to collect various samples of sponges and gorgonians. Two types of crabs became fairly abundant, Galatheid crabs and Golden crabs (Chaceon fenneri). The Galatheids had an oblong body shape and were a radiant red color with white tipped legs and claws. The Golden crabs had a typical body structure and were light tan in color with two large claws. Strands of beautiful black corals with thick verdant branches were prevalent in this area. While I was enjoying the panorama, Dr. Wright announced that they were going to collect a sponge called Leiodermatium. I was ecstatic to hear this since this was a sponge from which I had previously isolated a novel bioactive compound. After that collection, we continued upslope and saw a gorgeous conglomeration of organisms. A seafan was upside down under a ledge with Hexactinellids dangling from it. Hexactinellids are commonly known as glass sponges and these particular sponges looked like small snowballs. It turned out that the seafan was actually an assemblage of siliceous stalks which held the sponges together.
As we continued upslope, to my elation we were able to collect several more samples of Leiodermatium sponge.
The area was still plentiful with small branching Lophelia, the two crab species, and various gorgonians. The
boulders increased in size and large rock ledges provided substrate for corals and sponges. As we came over
one ledge we saw a vast forest of Hexactinellid sponges. Squirrelfish sought new cover while we collected seafans.
At 1650 feet, there was a noticeable increase in the number of juvenile fish and in planktonic activity. Gelatinous
jellyfish moved gently and gracefully through the water column as they fed on plankton. This euphoric moment was
disturbed by a call from above, the ship that is, informing us it was time to surface. Our successful sampling
adventure, where we had obtained 14 samples in 2.5 hours, had come to an end. Although disappointed that we had to return, I was eager to assess the chemistry of the Leiodermatium samples.
I have been on several other Marine Natural Products Drug Discover Group cruises both in the Bahamas and near the Florida coast. Each trip has been an exciting and unique experience. The Johnson-Sea-Link submersible provides rare insight into an environment that is seldom seen by humans and allows scientists to research the unusual organisms that reside in the deep sea. It was a great opportunity and learning experience which I hope to be able to repeat in the future. JSLII - dive 3595 - 14:00 The afternoon dive was to the same "hill" but to the other side. In front was experienced submariner Shirley Pomponi and in the back was first time submariner LaTasha Amisial. Following is Latasha's decritpion of her experience. My First Exploration Down In The Deep Blue - LaTasha Amisial It was Friday Morning at about 7:00 AM when it hit me that by 5:00 PM that afternoon I would be more than 1000 ft down in the depths of the sea. As I got ready for the day, I thought back over the previous day when I first saw the space inside the submersible that I would be sitting in. At first I was a bit worried it was going to be very small and cramped, so much so, that I was not sure I wanted to do the dive. After seeing that the space was large enough for me to move around in, I was feeling a lot better about the upcoming dive. 
As I continued to set out the various items I would need for the dive later that day, an announcement for
the morning dive meeting came over the load speaker. I dropped what I was doing and rushed upstairs. While seated
in the meeting I began to get a little excited, but I pushed the feelings away for it was still many hours until
my dive later that afternoon.
When 3:00 PM came around, the excitement and anticipation was rushing over me. I had only one hour 'til my dive. I hurried downstairs to my cabin to change and gather my things up. At around 3:45 I was ready to go. We had a brief meeting and then we loaded up into the submersible. Dr. Shirley Pomponi (lead scientist) and Don (chief pilot) w here in the front of the sub, while Frank (a submersible operator) and I rode in the back. We landed on the top of an underwater hill about 1556 ft down. When I looked out the porthole for the first time all I could see in every direction was a field of sea fans, sponges, rocks both large and small, crabs, and lots of small fish. It was beautiful. Shirley picked out numerous sponge and gorgonian (sea fan) samples of varying types. Some of which had very interesting shapes and colors. One in particular that I liked was the brilliantly bright yellow sponge we found on our way back up the hill. It was in the shape of a fan and was attached to the side of a rock surrounded by a garden of huge Plumarella pourtalesii gorgonians. It was collected at 1657 ft. half way up the hill. 
The maximum depth we reach during the dive was around 1768 ft when we were at the base of the hill. There was not much growth at that depth, but there were huge patches of black coral growing on the rocky bottom. They looked like beautiful, orange and pale pink mazes, as the branches of the corals intertwined with each other. As we made our way back up to the surface, Frank turned the light off so I could watch the bioluminescent dance performed by the jelly fish, phytoplankton, and small fish on our way up to the surface. It was amazing at times as it looked like there were small explosions of light as the different organisms interacted with each other. Once on the surface it seemed to take no time at all to get the submersible back on deck. Next thing I knew we were unloading the samples and I was back at work in my usual station helping process the samples we had collected.
That night I went to bed an hour early, totally exhausted. The minute my head hit the pillow I was out. I can't wait until the next time I get to go down. Until then I will dream many times about the underwater garden I was able to visit that late Friday afternoon. 
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