NOAA, Ocean Explorer: Bioluminescence 2009: Living Light on the Deep Sea Floor Expedition

Exploration's Mission Summary

Read a summary of the remarkably successful discoveries during this short, but very succesfull exploration! Mission summary has been provided by Chief Scientist Tamara Frank.

Exploration's July 29, 2009 Log

See a gooseneck barnacle, nestled within a Gerardia, peer at the submersible as it visits his home at 2,000 feet.

Exploration's July 28, 2009 Log

View pictures of bioluminescence from inside the submersible. There are dozens of species on the sea floor in even the bleakest habitat and, unlike the case for plankton, it seems that only a small fraction of them make light.

Exploration's July 27, 2009 Log

Gastroptychus spinifer, the UV-sensitive crab, has quite large eyes for such a small animal. This particular species was collected at around 1968.50 feet.

Exploration's July 26 Mystery Log

A Deep-Sea Mystery: Within minutes, a large school of Cuban Dogfish Shark surroundedthe the EITS, and began tearing at the bait and swimming in and out of the EITS frame – just like a pack of playful puppies.

Exploration's July 26, 2009 Log

Edwin Link and a Deep-Sea Mystery: on the morning of Tuesday, July 21, the EITS was placed at a depth of 2,000 feet, with a bait box to attract marine life, and its cameras set to record for one minute, every five minutes.

Exploration's July 25, 2009 Log

The Johnson Sea Link allows scientists to explore areas where literally no man has gone before due to the physical constraints of pressure and darkness. In the submersible the atmospheric pressure is kept at 1 atmosphere while the outside pressure at a depth of 2,200 ft is approx. 70 atmospheres!

Exploration's July 24, 2009 Log

We are pleased to report the discovery of a new species (possibly a new genus) of stalked crinoid, or sea lily, belonging to a family previously unknown in the western Atlantic Ocean. The miniature palm-tree-like animal, a relative of sea stars and sea urchins, is a member of the crinoid family Phrynocrinidae.

Exploration's July 23, 2009 Log

Blue-water diving is a scuba diving technique used by scientists to investigate animals living suspended in the middle of the ocean. These animals are too fragile to collect with large oceanographic equipment, or even plankton nets, and their abundance and importance are often underestimated.

Exploration's July 22, 2009 Log

Gabby Barbarite, a graduate student at Harbor Branch Oceanographic at Florida Atlantic University, has her first sub dive, and is excited to discover a whole new world of diving: "Out of all the adventures in the world, I must say that journeying to the bottom of the ocean takes the gold!"

Exploration's July 21, 2009 Log

Our first dive was on a deep water reef (called a lithoherm) which ran hundreds of feet, north to south. The highlight of our dive was encountering giant fan-like trees of magnificent golden coral - ranging in color from canary yellow, to rust orange, to auburn brown. Some of these golden corals may be more than a thousand years old.

Exploration's July 20, 2009 Log

Today, the Bioluminescence 2009 expedition team has been hard at work preparing equipment and setting up laboratories onboard the research vessel Seward Johnson as it steers toward the lithoherms west of the Little Bahamas Bank.

Exploration's Mission Plan

This fascinating phenomenon that is found in only a few species on land (e.g. fireflies), but is common in all the world’s oceans. It’s been estimated that 90% of the animals living in the pelagic (water column) are bioluminescent. Bioluminescence is one of the most amazing natural phenomenons because it seems to be drawn from science fiction or comic books, rather than science and natural history. How can a living animal make light? The technical answer is that light is produced by energy released from chemical reactions occurring inside (or ejected by) an organism.

Bioluminescence Explained ...

In addition to spanning the range of marine diversity, bioluminescence is also found throughout marine habitats, from the surface to the deep sea floor. Steven Haddock's essay teaches us about this incredible phenomenon.

Expedition's Education Modules (EEM)

Ocean Explorer Expedition Education Modules (EEM) are designed to reach out in new ways to teachers, students, and the general public, and share the excitement of daily at-sea discoveries and the science behind NOAA's major ocean exploration initiatives with the people around the world. The Bioluminescence 2009: Living Light on the Deep Sea Floor Expedition offers a unique opportunity to engage explorers of all ages as we continue our journeys to parts of our ocean planet that few have seen - the bioluminescent benthic environments of the deep ocean.

ORCA’s Eye-in-the-Sea

To observe bioluminescence unobtrusively in different benthic habitats we will be deploying ORCA’s Eye-in-the-Sea camera system. This unique deep-sea observatory is an autonomous, battery-powered, video-capture and illumination system that uses far red light, in combination with a highly sensitive camera that can record bioluminescence.

Dark Hilltop Gardens

Along the western margin of the Little Bahama Bank at depths from about 300 to 700 meters lies a vast swath of hundreds of limestone mounds.

Seeing in the Dark: Imaging and Vision at Low Light Levels

There are essentially no images of the deep-sea floor under natural light. Instead, all our images are taken under full-spectrum floodlights.

Bioluminescence 2009: Living Light on the Deep Sea Floor Explorers

Read about the highly trained scientists as they explore the fascinating phenomenon of bioluminescence, rarely found on land, yet common in species throughout the world ocean.

Mission Photo and Video Gallery

View photos and videos taken during the Bioluminescence 2009: Living Light on the Deep Sea Floor Expedition, including high-resolution photos, video, and slideshows.