August 9, 2004
Jon’s Journal: Day 7
BY: Jon Warrenchuk
[editor’s note, by Jason] Jon Warrenchuk is currently participating in NOAA’s 2004 Gulf of Alaska Seamount Expedition.
August 5, 2004: While there’s always duping, clipping, editing, and highlighting those “oh cool!” moments of underwater video to be done, the flurries of activity really begin when the Alvin breaks the surface after a dive.
Tom Shirley‘s research is focused on documenting species that rely on deep-sea corals for habitat. It’s relatively straightforward to video larger “macrofauna” such as crabs using corals as feeding platforms (and we see a lot of this). But it’s more difficult to assess the habitat of those smaller critters that play an important part of the benthic ecosystem. Fortunately, Alvin is equipped with vacuum “slurpers” and these are used to “slurp” around the corals and collect any critters on the branches. This technique reveals a myriad assemblage of creatures not apparent on video. When the sub is winched back on board, we empty the slurp tubes and find many strange and wonderful creatures. We catalogued and preserved brittlestars, polychaete worms, shrimp, amphipods, and anemones for future identification.
After our samples were processed, a pod of about 20 Pacific white-sided dolphins zipped around the boat during sunset. It was very oceanic.