All captured in video by scientists exploring 1220m (4000ft) beneath the surface in Pacific Ocean near Samoa the previous summer. The lava erupting from the West Mata volcano is predicted to be the hottest lava erupting one Earth.
[googlemap lat="-15.284185114076433" lng="-172.08984375" width="500px" height="500px" zoom="2" type="G_SATELLITE_MAP"]Samoa[/googlemap]
Over ten years ago Fred Grassle, a marine biologist with deep-sea tendencies, and Jesse Ausubel, program director for Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, started conversing on an initiative to document the biodiversity of the oceans. That program, the Census of Marine Life, started in 2000 with the goal “to advance a major new international observational program to be completed by 2010 to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of marine life.” That program lead to the support of several field projects and expeditions (currently over 15), the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), several initiatives focused on specific environments (abyssal plains, vents, seeps, seamounts, corals, continental margins, etc.), conferences, taxonomic workshops, and much more. Publications from CoML just from 2005-2008 number over 500. In 2010, a plethora of papers (species descriptions, synthesis papers, reviews, primary research) will hit journals including PLoS One Marine and Aquatic Sciences.
The project is completed by 2010, a little less than a month away. In the last ten years, The Sloan Foundation funded well over 100 million dollars for the CoML project. With a cadre of biologist, a huge budget, 14 field projects, and 210 expeditions, 17,650 new species were found and described. “The abyssal fauna is so rich in species diversity and so poorly described that collecting a known species is an anomaly,” says Dr. Billett. “Describing for the first time all the different species in any coffee cup-sized sample of deep-sea sediment is a daunting challenge.”
Five of the Census’ 14 field projects focus on the habitats below 200m – the continental margins (COMARGE: Continental Margins Ecosystems), the mid-Atlantic Ridge (MAR-ECO: Mid-Atlantic Ridge Ecosystem Project), the submerged mountains (CenSeam: Global Census of Marine Life on Seamounts), the muddy abyssal plains (CeDAMar: Census of Diversity of Abyssal Marine Life), and and chemically-driven ecosystems (ChEss:Biogeography of Deep-Water Chemosynthetic Systems). I’m involved with and received funding (yeah!) both under CenSeam and CeDAMar. As part of CeDAMar, I worked with a group developing a synthesis of abyssal diversity.
“There is both a great lack of information about the ‘abyss’ and substantial misinformation,” says Dr. Carney. “Many species live there. However, the abyss has long been viewed as a desert. Worse, it was viewed as a wasteland where few to no environmental impacts could be of any concern. ‘Mine it, drill it, dispose into it, or fish it – what could possibly be impacted? And, if there is an impact, the abyss is vast and best yet, hidden from sight.’ “Census of Marine Life deep realm scientists see and are concerned.
And it only gets worse if our nation’s children, those that will grow up to be future policy-makers and voters when we are all in depends or 6 feet underground, don’t have an appreciation for the ocean and its myriad of issues! Donate NOW to Oceans in the Classrooms! Reject a future of barren seafloor and empty seas for our children and their children!
Thanks to Eric Heupel for producing this PSA.
“There is absolutely nothing to restrict the geographical ranges of animals in the deep sea. Dr. Wallich, the pioneer of deep-sea research, eighteen years ago recognized the deep homothermal sea “As the great highway for animal migration, extending pole to pole” Below 500 fathoms it is everywhere dark and cold, and there are no ridges that rise on the ocean bottom to within 500 fathoms of the surface, so as to bar the migration of animals in the course of generations from one ocean to another, or all over the bottom of any one of the oceans.” –Mosely 1880, p. 546
In the last 130 years, our view of the deep oceans radically changed. No longer is the largest environment on earth considered a dark homogenous wasteland, unchanging through time, buffered against climatic fluctuation, and devoid of biodiversity. The modern view of the deep-sea realizes a varied landscape comprised of reducing habitats such hydrothermal vents, methane seeps; mid-oceanic ridge systems and geologic hotspots that produce topographic complexity and new volcanic substrates; large food falls in the form of wood and whales that provide oases of food in a low productivity system; intricate canyon and slope systems presenting radical environmental shifts; and oxygen minimum zones intercepting continental margins. Even the expansive mud bottom that serves as the backdrop for these multiple habitats is considered a spatially and temporally dynamic system characterized by episodic benthic storms, internal tides, downslope debris and sediment flows, patchy carbon input across multiple scales, rich with biogenic disturbance and structure, and intrinsically linked to ocean surface processes. The hypothesis of a biological desert is but a ghost of science past put to rest by findings of spectacularly high biodiversity. But what of the notion of deep-sea species unbound by dispersal barriers able to distribute across to the farthest extents of ocean basins? What is the biogeography of the deep sea?
In a multipart series I will examine the biogeography (defined very well by Jim Lemiere as the patterns of the geographic distribution of biodiversity – where organisms are, where they ain’t, and who lives with or without whom) of the deep. I do this in conjunction with an invited review on the same project, authored by myself and two accomplished deep-sea biologists that I have longed admired and possess a deep respect for. My plan is to use DSN as sounding board for this project.
Now, the biogeography of deep-sea organisms is historically a black box characterized more by conjecture than data. Unsurprising given the remoteness of this environment and challenges to sampling it presents. Previously, many assumed, due to the lack of perceived environmental variability and geographic barriers, ranges of deep-sea species on the abyssal plains and continental margins were exceedingly large. New research utilizing higher-resolution sampling, molecular methods, and a ever-expanding amount of information in public databases are once again raising the question of how small marine invertebrates disperse across the vast distances of the ocean floor. Recent findings on unique seamount and chemosynthetic habits suggest high levels of endemism and challenge the broad applicability of single paradigm for all deep-sea environments.
Stay tuned for the first segment on the origins of deep-sea fauna.
If there was a mountain in your backyard with no name, how long do you think it would stay that way? Not very long. Some intrepid explorer would climb it, map it, and name it. In the ocean, though, many mountains are unnamed, and unexplored.
There was a time when I lived in Los Angeles when I had lots of time to think about seamounts. I worked from home in a sweet apartment with a roof deck overlooking three different kinds of fruit trees. Life was good. I made maps for kicks in my spare time. My girl and I ate out nearly every night. Choosing a restaurant and a movie was actually the most difficult part of our day.
Then one day I met Dr. Craig McClain at a seamount conference in Vienna, Austria, and liked him immediately. Someone told him I had too much time on my hands. A month later he asked me to join his blog. With that, I was sucked into a 4 yr whirlwind. The blog got huge, I got married, went back to school, had two kids, and a PhD. Now, I am living in gratitude.
Here’s a gift, then, Craig, from when I had lots of time on my hands. Thanks always. I hope you find this Northeast Pacific seamount map handy. It looks real nice on glossy paper. I like it because the image shows clearly that there’s two kinds of seamounts- those within federal jurisdiction, and those without. Unnamed seamounts are fairly common, so there is much to explore. Even the named seamounts are untapped.
Best of luck in your adventures, Craig, and thank you for this one. Kevin, rock on, brother. There’s a shrimp out there with your name on it. Thanks for making Deep Sea News such a beautiful site.
Named and unnamed seamounts in the Northeast Pacific. Etnoyer, 2005.
Myself and Chris Mah (from Echinoblog) will particpating in Leg 5 of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s expedition ot the northern Pacific. Leg 5 of the expedition focuses on sampling lava flows that erupted during historic time on the Juan de Fuca and Gorda Mid-Ocean Ridges, and comparing them with the surrounding, older flows. Chris and I will be leading the biological sampling focusing on how the communities on older flows vary from those younger flows. We will be trying to address questions such as: How much time is required for a deep-sea community to form? As lava flows become older do the provide new habitats for organisms? How do the species found at volcanic ridges compare to the surrounding seamounts? Overall a great trip. You can follow Chris and I through daily posts and pinpoint our daily location.
Map of the dive sites visited on leg 5 of the expedition. Map courtesy of MBARI
Its summertime folks, and it seems like everyone is either heading out to sea, or returning from a recent expedition. If not that, its a conference. Craig reported last week from Evolution 2009, and Kevin’s off to a meeting for the Biogeography of Chemosythetic Ecosystems (ChEss) in Japan. I’m still stuck here in Texas writing my dissertation, but I’ll try to mix it up with random happenings so y’all have something interesting to read.
Are you ready for another Expedition? The Census of Marine Life on Seamounts (CenSeam) group is asking you to follow along with RV Tangaroa, the research vessel of New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, as they sail south – uncovering seamount communities never before seen. On June 12th CenSeam returned to the Graveyard, the location of the very first CenSeam voyage. Check out the scientist stories and seafloor maps. There’s more on deep-corals, from researcher Di Tracey if, like me, you just can’t get enough.
The image above is one of several interesting shots from the Graveyard website.
When put in water, volcanoes may increase in size
From National Geographic:
The science team, led by Bill Chadwick of Oregon State University, reports the volcano has been growing considerably in the last three years. Chadwick says the volcano has expanded 131 feet in height and nearly a thousand feed in width, about as tall as a 12-story building and as wide as a city block….NW Rota-1 is about 1,700 feet below sea level, and the pressure of the ocean keeps the energy released from the volcano from becoming too explosive, allowing the remote vehicle, Jason, to get close.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute recently unleashed their new YouTube Channel. Of course it features Macropinna but you can also see Humboldt squid. A new video (below) on Davidson Seamount that discusses research I have been involved with was just uploaded today.
Image credit: (c) 2006 MBARI / NOAA These this photograph shows three different types of sponges growing on the lava of Davidson Seamount: large yellow sponges, white frilly sponges, and white filamentous sponges which were previously thought to be a type of coral. The large yellow sponge provides a perch for several basket stars and pink shrimp.
About a month ago, I published my first paper at PLoS One. I believed an open access journal was the most appropriate place for the work so the group’s findings would be accessible to the public, scientists, conservationists, and policy makers. I am delighted to say that this work, and the major finding of connectedness between the seamount and the surrounding deep sea, in part aided in efforts to include Davidson Seamount into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
I am delighted to see this work being discussed both locally at the Monterey Herald (Scientist See Movement of Marine Species) and internationally in a piece done for Conservation Magazine, a publication for the Society for Conservation Biology (A Seamount a Dozen).
Image credit: (c) 2006 MBARI / NOAA These large yellow sponges are of an unknown species, but researchers on the cruise have been calling them "Picasso sponges" because of their wild shapes. The yellow sponges grow to almost one meter (three feet) tall. Like the corals on Davidson Seamount, the sponges feed on tiny particles suspended in the currents.
Craig R. McClain, Lonny Lundsten, Micki Ream, James Barry, Andrew DeVogelaere (2009). Endemicity, Biogeography, Composition, and Community Structure On a Northeast Pacific Seamount PLoS ONE, 4 (1) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0004141
