WEBVTT

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We're going to be offshore of
the Southeast United States

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roughly east of Georgia, South
Carolina, and Florida. This is

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a region called the Blake
Plateau. The Blake Plateau is a

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flat area about six hundred to a
thousand meters deep.

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Most of the East Coast is sort
of a gradual shelf that

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transitions slowly into the
deep ocean. We have some

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fascinating canyons to the
north but down here you have

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this very broad sort of
mid-depth shelf which is fairly

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unusual and then you have a
very steep drop off into the

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very deep sea called the abyss.

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It's been known for quite a
while. There's a lot of

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foundational work in this
region by scientists that did

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early submersible work here.
Pilot, dive super. Go, dive

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super. You guys are free to
continue your descent.

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The recent systematic mapping
and exploration efforts on the

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Blake Plateau provide a perfect
case study of how we can

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implement NOMEC. By
coordinating among many

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partners, we can strategically
plan and implement exploration

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missions such as each
expedition builds upon the

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others in mapping coverage and
then we can efficiently utilize

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submersible vehicles to give us
stunning new insights into

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these marine habitats.

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One of the most important
aspects of this area is it's

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-known for one of the largest
deep sea coral ecosystems in

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the world that's been
discovered thus far. This is

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honestly one of the largest
thickets of Lophelia that I've

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seen of this size. The coral
mounds influence the

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biodiversity of the sea floor
basically providing habitat

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structure. So those coral
mounds provide a great habitat

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upon which other things can
grow and that's where we tend

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to see a lot of the the biology
that we're interested in. I

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would love to see as many
Lophelia mounds as we can see.

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That would make me very happy.
I'd really like to see as far

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east as they go just so that we
have an idea of where this

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habitat actually ends. We have
made it to the top of our

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exploration today and now we're
looking around on the rim.

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To be able to understand that
ecosystem is really the first

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step in being able to properly
manage human uses of the ocean

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that interact with that
ecosystem. That's really why

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we're here is to try to get
that basic information, that

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actionable data that people can
make management decisions with.