WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:06.500 --> 00:00:14.960 Welcome to our Deep Connections 2019 expedition aboard the Okeanos Explorer, America's ship for ocean exploration. 00:00:16.260 --> 00:00:21.060 Our expedition, Deep Connections, was named that for twofold reasons. 00:00:21.300 --> 00:00:27.980 The first being that seamounts and canyons within our Northeast waters are connected. 00:00:28.020 --> 00:00:32.160 Both to each other and from the deep sea to the shallow waters. 00:00:34.240 --> 00:00:38.320 We also have connections between our transboundary expedition 00:00:38.320 --> 00:00:41.840 starting in Halifax, Nova Scotia surveying Canadian waters 00:00:41.840 --> 00:00:49.540 and then moving into U.S. waters and seeing the connection between areas across our borders. 00:00:51.100 --> 00:00:55.980 We here, in Canada, have a number of canyon ecosystems 00:00:56.040 --> 00:01:02.080 but the majority of them on the Atlantic coast haven't been fully explored. 00:01:08.340 --> 00:01:15.160 The continental shelf is generally thought to be in the area of about 120 meters below sea level or shallower. 00:01:15.260 --> 00:01:22.100 While the deep-sea depths range from 1,000 meters to 6,000 meters, or even more in the trenches. 00:01:23.360 --> 00:01:26.760 Submarine canyons, which are canyons carved within the seabed 00:01:26.760 --> 00:01:33.220 as well as seamounts which are these protrusions that are formed from mantle hotspots pushing through the lithosphere 00:01:33.220 --> 00:01:38.540 serve as bridge communities between that shallow continental shelf and the deep sea. 00:01:38.920 --> 00:01:45.680 They do so in a number of ways: biologically, chemically, physical oceanographic, as well as sediment conduits. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:52.960 So they're really important to study from various disciplines, they mean different things to different scientists. 00:01:53.460 --> 00:01:53.960 Nice. 00:01:57.520 --> 00:02:02.720 Seamounts and canyons are often considered biodiversity hotspots in the deep sea. 00:02:02.900 --> 00:02:08.340 That means that we see a wide range of animals that very densely packed 00:02:08.340 --> 00:02:11.100 in these relatively small areas of the deep ocean. 00:02:11.380 --> 00:02:15.300 And that's because these areas have similar features within them. 00:02:15.560 --> 00:02:20.060 Canyons have steep walls and these seamounts have steep slopes. 00:02:20.060 --> 00:02:25.420 And these types of steep and rugged terrain are really important for corals and sponges 00:02:25.460 --> 00:02:29.100 and their associated community of organisms to live. 00:02:30.060 --> 00:02:37.300 These bamboo coral forests are amazing! We've never seen them this dense in the Gully or really anywhere else. 00:02:39.140 --> 00:02:46.240 One common feature of these seamounts and submarine canyons that are being explored 00:02:46.300 --> 00:02:54.780 is that we're seeing species that are similar between them yet the geographic space between them is quite wide. 00:02:56.300 --> 00:02:58.380 The oceans know no boundaries. 00:02:58.880 --> 00:03:06.420 There is exchange of genetic material, movement of animals across many places within the oceans. 00:03:06.780 --> 00:03:13.320 So, it's really important to study transboundary to understand how these areas are connected. 00:03:16.380 --> 00:03:20.360 Working together with the U.S. on transboundary regions 00:03:20.480 --> 00:03:24.720 has allowed us to get a better understanding 00:03:24.720 --> 00:03:28.460 of the marine ecosystems that we share. 00:03:29.160 --> 00:03:33.240 And to create better hypotheses on patterns of connectivity 00:03:33.380 --> 00:03:36.500 along the Eastern slopes off of North America. 00:03:36.820 --> 00:03:43.780 This gives us a lot of information on how these ecosystems may change in the future. 00:03:43.960 --> 00:03:48.380 And how we can collectively respond to that change. 00:03:50.620 --> 00:03:55.820 Even though science, as we know it thus far, has been confined to countries 00:03:55.820 --> 00:03:58.900 doing science within their own territorial waters. 00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:07.360 This is an example of what can get accomplished if interagency agreement at the international level is happening. 00:04:10.640 --> 00:04:14.680 It's been amazing! We never thought we would see what we've seen 00:04:14.680 --> 00:04:16.240 so thank you so much! 00:04:16.400 --> 00:04:20.780 I'm sure we'll get lots of great information from it. 00:04:23.840 --> 00:04:29.740 There's no good reason, from a scientific perspective, to only limit studies to one country. 00:04:29.940 --> 00:04:35.500 As a scientist who has been working in the field for give or take 10 years 00:04:35.500 --> 00:04:39.220 it's really notable how collaborative this program is. 00:04:39.500 --> 00:04:41.940 It's just a new paradigm for doing science.