 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
 |
OPERATION DEEP SCOPE Exploring Gulf of Mexico Deep-Sea Habitats MISSION DISPATCH 2 • August 08, 2004 Dispatch by Mark Schrope - @Sea Photo-Journalist Today's weather forecast distinguished itself from most in that it was actually correct. Last night's 20-knot winds and rough, wind-capped seas gave way overnight to the glassy ocean and gently rolling swells we see now. 
The Seward Johnson II arrived at
the Brine Pool location on time at about 3:45 p.m. after 32 hours of steaming.
Within 15 minutes, the Johnson-Sea-Link
was in the water for the first dive,
with
Dr. Edie Widder in the front sphere, along with pilot Tim Askew, and
Erika Heine a graduate student, in the aft chamber with pilot Alan Fuller.
The main mission for the first dive was to drop off equipment that would remain on the bottom to unobtrusively peek at what life is really like at the Brine Pool when we aren't there with bright lights and noise from the submersible scaring who-knows-what away. The Brine Pool is a truly bizarre scene, and Edie calls it "one of the most exotic places on Earth." It is the largest one known at about 50 feet across and perhaps 60 feet deep, but there are other smaller ones scattered about as well. The pools were first discovered during oil exploration work involving video surveys of the bottom. The pools are created by cracks made in the bottom that expose thick areas of salt buildup that formed about 85 million years ago when the Gulf was dry here and pools of saltwater dried up. Once exposed, this salt mixes with seawater to form incredibly dense water roughly four times saltier than normal. That makes it so heavy that the brine water cannot mix with the saltwater above and so forms these incredible, contained lakes. The water is in fact so dense that the sub cannot go down into it because it is too buoyant. 
The same cracks that expose the salt can also allow methane to seep out, which in places forms the basis of a food web that supports thick beds of mussels supported by chemosynthetic bacteria that feed on the methane. Throughout the beds countless shrimp and crabs also wander. The dive team first placed the Eye-in-the-Sea camera system at the far edge of the mussel bed so that it can record footage of it and the brine pool until tomorrow. They also dropped a bait bag in front of the camera and a new jellyfish lure that mimics the bioluminescent light pattern given off by some jellyfish. Both are intended to attract animals while the sub is away that we will be able to see on tape once the Eye is retrieved tomorrow. 
Another key goal was to drop off
Dr. Tammy Frank's light-tight traps designed to bring animals to the surface in complete darkness so that their eyes can be studied
without the damage from submersible or ship lights that have doomed other similar attempts. Two traps were placed in front of the Eye-in-the-Sea and two others
were placed at nearby clumps of tubeworms, which are another animal supported by chemosynthetic bacteria.
After all the equipment was in place, the team had some time, but not nearly as much as they would like, to do some exploring. They found and gathered some crabs as well as samples of the bacteria that grow in mats on the bottom. On the way up they turned the sub's lights off to admire the fireworks displays of bioluminescence given off by the all but endless array of animals in the ocean's midwaters that produce their own light. To Tammy's dismay, the sub team reported that the site was nearly swarming with hagfish. Hagfish are found throughout the deep sea and are generally regarded as the vilest creature in the ocean, mainly because they produce astonishing quantities of slime. The hagfish are so disgusting that they were used in a recent episode of Fear Factor where contestants had to climb into a large vat of them while  wearing bikinis, of course
(see photo of Tammy Frank with a handful of slime, sans bikini).
Hagfish look like eels and, though primitive, they obviously have a good sense of smell because they found all the bait bags on our equipment in short order. Tammy's
main problem is that the hagfish have no eyes to speek of, so they offer nothing for her to study, but are the easiest thing to catch in the traps.
During the second dive Tammy retrieved the traps successfully. Anxiously unloading them in a dark room in the ship's lab, she found the worst-case scenario--- nothing but hags. But, there is plenty of time for more trap deployments so the team is hopeful other retrievals will be more successful. Tomorrow morning we will retrieve the Eye-in-the-Sea and learn, with everyone crowded around the monitors, what wonders it has been recording. Edie is excited but apprehensive because she is not sure what the bright lights of the sub may have done to the light-intensified camera on the Eye when the sub went back down to get the traps. In theory the Eye is programmed to prevent any problems from such events, but we will not know until the rig is on deck whether the programming worked according to plan. We shall see. 
 |  |
| ||