We are currently in an inter-canyon area, between Veatch and XX Canyons
and we are headed to a target depth of about 1,468 meters.
We detected water column anomalies or active gas coming out of the seafloor
in the water column data collected from multibeam mapping.
And so we are going to the site to ground truth these plumes
and hopefully find chemosynthetic communities.
Right here we’re coming up on a huge patch of mussels.
This is going to be one of the biggest patches of mussels that we’ve seen so far.
We’re almost right there on top of what we had as a seep target based upon the multibeam
mapping that was done last night.
We are off the northeastern U.S. coast,
surveying the continental slope in an area
known as the U.S. canyons region.
We’ve found a large mussel bed community and this is the
first time we’re viewing this area so far in the deep sea.
We’re getting a zoom in on where we are and you can see
tons of bubbles coming off underneath that ledge.
Excellent.
There is hydrate under there, see that little snow cone underneath of there, that ledge.
So this is great video, this is really nice.
I think this is, see, … I think this is an icy coating, I think this is hydrate.
See that bubble right there?
This is awesome.
I agree with you Carol, this looks a lot icier than…
Oh, that is awesome!
Oh my gosh, this white stuff in the water column, now this could be very significant,
this may actually be hydrates forming in the water column.
You see these white flecks coming up?
Yeah.
That’s very …
And it’s very possible that we’re forming hydrate in the water column as it comes up.
This is about within eight meters of where we had the target
identified based upon the multibeam mapping.
And we’re at a depth of 418 meters and we are viewing active venting from the seafloor.
There’s a great view of some of the bubbles coming up on the Seirios view.
It looks like this is going to conclude our dive today, the 12th of July.
The time is 1538.
Our bottom depth is 1,413 meters.
We’ve been along the continental slope of the northeastern U.S.
coast and we targeted a few different sites that we mapped last night
and confirmed water column anomalies.
We landed down and we came across patches of mussels and a fairly large mussel bed.
One of the bigger ones, well, the biggest mussel bed that we’ve seen leg anyways.