Lophelia II 2009: Deepwater Coral Expedition: Reefs, Rigs, and Wrecks
August 19 - September 12, 2009
A close-up of the scleractinian coral Lophelia pertusa from the Mississippi Canyon 751 site at approximately 450 m depth. This image was taken with the SeaEye Falcon DR ROV during the first cruise of this program in September 2008. Click image for larger view and image credit.
This is the third cruise in a four-year project sponsored by the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research (OER) and the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS), a division of the Department of the Interior. The overall goal of this project is to explore new areas of the Gulf of Mexico in search of coral communities; in doing so, we can develop the tools to better predict the occurrence of corals and to understand why they occur where they do. This effort begins long before we go to sea, with a group of scientists poring over industry 3-D seismic data and bathymetry providing information on the structure and composition of the sea-floor. When a number of likely sites are chosen, we survey these "high-probability" sites with different tools to gather higher-resolution bathymetry data and to get our first real look at the sea floor. As we embark on this cruise, we have already discovered a handful of new coral sites, and we hope to discover even more. In addition to mapping out coral distribution, we will be collecting the data necessary to fully describe the habitats of the corals, the communities associated with them, and the levels of genetic connectivity among the coral communities. We will also be collecting live corals and transporting them back to the laboratory to conduct experiments and tobetter understand the factors controlling their distribution. During the second part of the cruise, we will also be surveying shipwrecks in order to examine the coral communities in the wrecks, as well as to describe and preserve these potentially historic sites. If we can accomplish these ambitious goals, we will be well on our way to understanding the cold-water corals of the Gulf of Mexico.
You can access the Ocean Explorer Lophelia II 2009 News Feed here:
Updates & Logs
Click images or links below for detailed mission logs and updates.
August 23 Log Today scientists spent seven or eight hours in a frenzy of photographing, describing, documenting, identifying, preserving and cataloging every single bit of living or non-living specimen retrieved from the depths. 
Includes Video
August 21 Log See all of the major varieties of deep-sea corals, including stony corals (Scleractinia), such as Lophelia pertusa; soft corals (Octocorallia), including gorgonian sea fans and bamboo corals; black corals (Antipatharia) and hydrocorals (Stylasteridae). Includes Video
August 20 Log The main science lab on the Ron Brown ship is bustling with activity as the science team prepares for the first Jason dive, scheduled for just before sunset. No one has seen our first dive site before
