WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:04.470 --> 00:00:08.720 It's important to explore the deep sea because it's one of our final frontiers. 00:00:09.080 --> 00:00:11.740 So little of the deep ocean has been explored. 00:00:12.460 --> 00:00:18.100 We are aboard the Okeanos Explorer, America's vessel for ocean exploration. 00:00:18.880 --> 00:00:20.880 Pilot has control, ready for release. 00:00:21.360 --> 00:00:26.640 Our vessel is a little different, that we're on board right now, in which it's driven strictly by curiosity 00:00:33.240 --> 00:00:35.380 The name of our expedition is Deep Connections 00:00:35.390 --> 00:00:40.399 and that means not only the connection between the US and Canada and the 00:00:40.580 --> 00:00:46.780 strengthening of our bonds between our countries with this interboundary exploration. 00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:51.800 But also the connection between our deep oceans and our coastal waters. 00:00:52.220 --> 00:00:54.220 With the canyon areas 00:00:55.980 --> 00:01:00.800 Some of these features that we're exploring on this very expedition are extremely large 00:01:02.080 --> 00:01:06.360 Some of these canyons that we're focusing, Oceanographer Canyon, for example 00:01:06.660 --> 00:01:13.860 is as tall as the Grand Canyon and similarly some of these seamounts that we're focusing on are very tall 00:01:14.100 --> 00:01:16.100 several thousand feet in elevation 00:01:16.500 --> 00:01:18.500 comparable to the Appalachian Mountains. 00:01:20.320 --> 00:01:22.399 The animals in the ocean know no boundaries. 00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:29.100 They don't understand that, you know certain lines in the ocean have been drawn, belonging to different countries. 00:01:29.640 --> 00:01:35.000 So exploring transboundary is really important to our research. 00:01:36.220 --> 00:01:40.820 This first site is in The Gully Marine Protected Area or MPA and 00:01:41.060 --> 00:01:45.380 was a very high-priority site targeted by our Canadian partners. 00:01:46.740 --> 00:01:49.800 These bamboo coral forests are amazing! 00:01:49.800 --> 00:01:51.800 We've never seen them this dense. 00:01:55.900 --> 00:02:02.980 The North Atlantic Ocean is pivotal importance to humankind and provides many fishery resources. 00:02:02.980 --> 00:02:05.320 It is important to transportation 00:02:05.820 --> 00:02:08.960 Yet many of these places have never been explored. 00:02:13.880 --> 00:02:20.760 Submarine canyons are our connection between land and the ocean and so the fact that we're in the axis of one of these canyons right now 00:02:20.760 --> 00:02:23.940 I'd expect that to concentrate and focus 00:02:24.040 --> 00:02:28.640 materials from the continental shelf down to this relatively deep-sea environment. 00:02:30.260 --> 00:02:36.460 Canyons and seamounts are really important areas to the ocean because they are hotspots of biodiversity 00:02:40.200 --> 00:02:44.200 Bunches of corals in particular are very important to these ecosystems. 00:02:48.480 --> 00:02:56.480 Yeah, just another example of how one thing planting a flight in this desert of sediment can create a little of oasis of multiple organisms 00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:04.780 So on this expedition we're using a habitat suitability modeling because they help us 00:03:05.020 --> 00:03:10.740 try to predict what might be on the larger seafloor that has not yet been explored. 00:03:13.240 --> 00:03:18.640 A pioneer in habitat suitability modeling was Dr. Brian Kinlan, after who the submarine canyon is named 00:03:19.120 --> 00:03:25.880 For many years Bryan worked for NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, and was very revolutionary 00:03:25.960 --> 00:03:33.200 in his approach of predicting where we might find some of most special and vulnerable marine ecosystems. 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:55.060 We've gotten spectacular guidance to the regional biology and geology from our partners at the Canadian Geological Survey and 00:03:55.240 --> 00:03:58.780 Fisheries and Oceans Canada has just been absolutely fantastic. 00:03:59.640 --> 00:04:02.240 This is really the way science should be conducted 00:04:05.660 --> 00:04:12.060 So every time we do a dive I'm always impressed with just how breathtaking 00:04:12.080 --> 00:04:15.300 some of these landscapes to be, or seascapes, if you were. 00:04:16.980 --> 00:04:19.740 We're always finding something new or unexpected 00:04:19.740 --> 00:04:21.800 on every dive and that's what makes 00:04:21.930 --> 00:04:27.710 this a really great tool and what's so great about the Okeanos and our program here is 00:04:28.080 --> 00:04:30.480 we're here to explore.