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HOV Alvin operating on the Gulf of Mexico seafloor near deep-sea corals.

HOV Alvin operating on the Gulf of Mexico seafloor near deep-sea corals.
HOV Alvin operating on the Gulf of Mexico seafloor near deep-sea corals.
HOV Alvin operating on the Gulf of Mexico seafloor near deep-sea corals.
HOV Alvin operating on the Gulf of Mexico seafloor near deep-sea corals.
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WHOI-MISO Camera System
HOV Alvin operating on the Gulf of Mexico seafloor near deep-sea corals.
Still Image
01/11/2016
14G0292-Oceanus_v51n1-9.jpg
Caption from Oceanus magazine, Vol. 48, No. 3, back cover:
VISITORS FROM ABOVE—In December 2010, a multi-institutional team of scientists traveled to the Gulf of Mexico aboard the WHOI-operated research vessel Atlantis to investigate possible impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on communities of marine life surrounding deep-sea corals on the seafloor. They placed an ocean-bottom time-lapse camera system at a coral site seven miles southwest of and at roughly the same depth as the Macondo well that blew out earlier in the year. The researchers seek to document changes in the deep-sea coral community, which appears to be exhibiting signs of stress. This image from a series of time-lapse photos also captured the human occupied submersible Alvin sampling and documenting organisms on the other side of a hard-bottom area on which the corals grow. See story on Page 40.
Image Of the Day caption:
In 2010, Alvin traveled to the Gulf of Mexico to assess the impacts the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on vulnerable deep-sea corals ecosystems and the organisms that inhabit them. WHOI scientists began studying deep-sea coral communities in 2008 in an attempt to understand what the poorly understood systems look like and how they function in an unperturbed environment. When oil began gushing from the Macondo well in 2010, WHOI scientists used Alvin to confirm damage to these fragile ecosystems and to establish a site where they can monitor future changes caused by the spill.
Caption from Oceanus magazine, Vol. 51, No. 1, pg. 9:
After the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, scientists in Alvin assessed the impacts on deep-sea communities and vulnerable deep-sea corals that were coated with oil.
Image courtesy of Chuck Fisher, Pennsylvania State University, and Tim Shank, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Deep-sea time-lapse camera system provided by WHOI-MISO
© Chuck Fisher, Pennsylvania State University
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