WEBVTT 00:00:07.710 --> 00:00:11.250 We're out here on the NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, America's ship for ocean exploration. 00:00:11.450 --> 00:00:13.210 And we're doing some really exciting work. 00:00:17.062 --> 00:00:23.770 I think for me, one of the big things, going to out sea, it really gave me a sense of scale, how big our oceans are. 00:00:25.535 --> 00:00:29.510 I knew the oceans were big, but when you're out there and you're not seeing another ship in any direction, 00:00:29.710 --> 00:00:35.610 and it's in the evening and you can see a million stars, that's been a really special experience. 00:00:36.680 --> 00:00:44.240 And then, on top of that, seeing the science, seeing what's under the ocean and it's amazing that we're only scratching the surface. 00:00:46.893 --> 00:00:49.610 Every time we go out, we're finding something new, that no one's seen before. 00:00:50.576 --> 00:00:52.950 I think that's just really incredible and really rewarding. 00:00:53.757 --> 00:00:56.750 On this expedition alone, we've been part of some amazing discoveries. 00:00:58.958 --> 00:01:05.460 A couple of our main objectives of this expedition was to target some of the most vulnerable communities, 00:01:05.660 --> 00:01:10.810 so ecosystems that we know consist of species that are slow-growing and long-lived. 00:01:13.134 --> 00:01:21.030 Geographically, we recorded a number of species that had only been known from the Pacific Ocean right here in the backyard of the Gulf of Mexico. 00:01:22.668 --> 00:01:25.460 They're not small things, these are enormous organisms. 00:01:27.705 --> 00:01:28.210 Wow. 00:01:29.109 --> 00:01:32.490 Really tremendous view of these coral gardens. 00:01:34.422 --> 00:01:36.360 Yeah, this is really beautiful. 00:01:38.784 --> 00:01:46.550 In fact, by area, if we look at reefs in deeper waters, they're a lot bigger and they cover more places on Earth than the shallow-water reefs. 00:01:47.608 --> 00:01:49.010 And they are just as important. 00:01:49.210 --> 00:01:56.640 They create habitat for a myriad of species, including many invertebrates and fishes, some of which are commercially important. 00:01:58.276 --> 00:02:05.790 We documented in areas where several agencies have put in preliminary proposals to try to put new management strategies. 00:02:05.990 --> 00:02:13.470 And so documenting these places provides a lot of information that has direct links to decision making. 00:02:21.913 --> 00:02:25.890 They are the rain forests of the deep sea and just absolutely spectacular. 00:02:27.995 --> 00:02:30.430 Look at this block of rock just hanging off the wall here, 00:02:30.630 --> 00:02:33.730 you get a real sense of the instability in the local geology here, 00:02:33.930 --> 00:02:38.700 but nonetheless, these fans are likely hundreds, if not over a thousand years old, 00:02:38.900 --> 00:02:41.270 so that gives you a sense that although this looks unstable, 00:02:41.470 --> 00:02:46.150 these blocks have been sitting in their current position for quite some time. 00:02:48.627 --> 00:02:52.150 Yeah, and this entire escarpment is an interesting and fascinating feature. 00:02:52.350 --> 00:02:57.810 It goes for several hundred miles and really, really deep. 00:02:58.010 --> 00:03:02.480 You can dive anywhere from 3,000 meters to about 600 meters. 00:03:04.355 --> 00:03:07.920 During this expedition, we've seen a lot of very cool geological features. 00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:12.880 In the far western Gulf, we got to dive for the very first time on a very deep canyon. 00:03:15.033 --> 00:03:21.000 For me, the really exciting parts of this expedition so far have been making it to Perdido Canyon. 00:03:21.200 --> 00:03:24.720 That was one of the objectives met by the scientific community. 00:03:24.920 --> 00:03:29.660 It was far west and the fact that we were able to get out there and dive on these sites, 00:03:29.860 --> 00:03:37.520 not only dive there but also get some high-resolution mapping in the U.S.EEZ that hasn't existed before, I thought that was really important. 00:03:40.615 --> 00:03:42.280 It's been a lot of fun working in the Gulf of Mexico. 00:03:42.480 --> 00:03:47.600 It's such a unique environment where we'll be mapping these deep areas that people have never seen before, 00:03:47.800 --> 00:03:53.180 but of course, you'll step out on deck at night and to me it almost feels like you're walking down Fifth Avenue, New York City, right? 00:03:53.380 --> 00:03:57.380 You have these oil rigs that are lit up out here and it's just a really crazy environment. 00:03:58.436 --> 00:04:03.900 But what we've been able to do as a program is say, okay here are the technical capabilities of the ship, 00:04:04.100 --> 00:04:10.070 here's what we can go out and do, let's find an area that's non-explored, map it, dive on it the next day. 00:04:11.544 --> 00:04:16.510 Some of the highlights of this cruise, mapping wise, it's always really exciting to find methane seeps, 00:04:16.710 --> 00:04:18.680 where bubbles are coming out of the seafloor naturally. 00:04:19.531 --> 00:04:21.370 We can see those really clearly on the sonars. 00:04:22.534 --> 00:04:27.430 And those of course are really exciting for both us and the scientists because it's not just getting maps of the seafloor, 00:04:27.630 --> 00:04:29.800 we can also get what's in the water column. 00:04:32.048 --> 00:04:37.300 One of the reasons we really like to focus on natural seeps and brine pools is because 00:04:37.500 --> 00:04:45.580 the gas in the brine coming up from the seafloor build these natural environments like the mud volcano, but also they create fantastic habitat. 00:04:45.780 --> 00:04:50.160 They can create hard grounds on which we find a lot of chemosynthetic organisms, 00:04:50.360 --> 00:04:55.120 and these are very exciting deep-sea communities that we don't find in other, shallower waters. 00:04:57.437 --> 00:05:02.290 I think one of the really interesting things about this cruise is of course that Dan is a biologist and I'm a geologist, 00:05:02.490 --> 00:05:04.630 and sometimes people think of these as just two separate things, 00:05:04.830 --> 00:05:09.010 but what I've found really compelling during this expedition is how closely they're interlinked. 00:05:10.127 --> 00:05:15.010 At deep-sea seeps, we have organisms that are creating geology, they're building rocks 00:05:15.210 --> 00:05:18.420 that create these hard grounds that other organisms like corals can grow on. 00:05:19.088 --> 00:05:23.080 But then we even look at geological processes happening hundreds of millions of years ago, 00:05:23.280 --> 00:05:27.120 set the stage for many of the specific habitats we see in the Gulf. 00:05:33.268 --> 00:05:36.210 And then we've also been able to possibly identify some new species. 00:05:38.392 --> 00:05:44.260 Probably the most bizarre squid I've ever seen. I wish I could tell you for sure what it was. 00:05:48.767 --> 00:05:54.010 You know, thinking as a professional scientist, the phrase "new species," or "previously unknown to science," 00:05:54.210 --> 00:05:57.890 is just such an amazing, profound thing to hear those words. 00:05:58.697 --> 00:06:04.130 And there may be folks who work terrestrially who never in the course of their work see new species to science, 00:06:04.330 --> 00:06:10.370 and yet it seems like consistently, throughout these dives, we keep bringing this up and seeing things we haven't seen before. 00:06:10.570 --> 00:06:14.610 And so there's something very special and exciting about this deep-sea exploration here. 00:06:17.922 --> 00:06:23.540 I think the really important thing is how common these observations of new things are in the deep sea, 00:06:23.740 --> 00:06:27.510 just highlighting just how much more there is to be discovered, 00:06:27.710 --> 00:06:35.390 how little we've been able to get to know about these ecosystems that cover the biggest part of our world's surface.