Yesterday I did my first dive with the South Florida Reef Research Team. We bordered a 20' center console catamaran (a sweet boat) and headed out of John U. Lloyd State Park in Dania Beach (Ft. Lauderdale area).
The South Florida Reef Research Team, Inc. (SFRRT) was formed as a non-profit organization under section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code for the purpose of gathering data on the reef systems of Broward County, Florida. Members are volunteers interested in observing, collecting and documenting physical and biological information and specimens from the natural and artificial reef.
The aim of this origination is to train non-scientists in the proper methodology to gather and store information that is acceptable, retrievable and useful to the reef builders, users and the scientific community through the establishment of a public reef data base. Appropriate agencies will interpret the value of the data gathered off the natural and artificial reefs over an extended period of time. Scientific, commercial and other interested parties will be allowed free access to the data in order to interpret its relation to economic, environmental and recreational activities.
Broward County has been working on a Beach Restoration to make the beaches nice, etc by dredging up sand off shore and putting it up on the beach. This is bad for the reefs and that was the focus behind the research dive that I did on Sunday. Sediment bottles are used to collect samples of the sediment that is on the reefs and pictures are taken to show how the reef has changed on a monthly basis. The reason it is bad to use the sand from off our shore is because the sand out on the reef is different than the sand on the shore. The sand offshore Florida contains silt (contains clay and sand particles that are smaller than the grade sand already on the beach) and silt doesn't settle like sand does. Some silts can take days to settle once its stirred up by dredging, and that causes poor vis on our reefs, the sun gets blocked by the silt and that also effects the reefs, and the reef ends up getting buried as well. The best thing that the County could do to remoras the beaches is to buy the sand from somewhere like the Bahamas and have it shipped over, but because this costs more they don't do it.
During my dive I helped switch out the full sediment bottles with new sediment collection bottles. The bottles are analyzed by a professional lab for content. Also we took 20 frames of photos along both sides of a 10m line. The same 20 pictures are taken every month and comparisons are made to see what has changed. Algae samples are also taken. Also the visibility is measures using a Secchi Disk.
There are 3 dive sites that this is done at: The Barrow Pit, Deep Reef and Shallow Reef. (on the second 2 dives the reefs don't have names other than deep and shallow).
Barrow pit is 92' to the sand, 23 bottom time, 12 minutes ascent. They do everything except for the photos there.
Deep site is 62' sand, 50' on top, we were down for 35 minutes 10 min ascent. This is the dive I did.
Shallow site is 42ft sand, 35 on top. The team that did that dive had a bottom time of 38 mins.
Here are some pics (not from my dive) that show the sedimnet collection bottles and the framer we used during the picture taking portion of the dive.
http://www.geocities.com/sflrrt/0110mnt/pages/Dsc00021.htm
http://www.geocities.com/sflrrt/0110mnt/pages/Dsc00072.htm
The South Florida Reef Research Team, Inc. (SFRRT) was formed as a non-profit organization under section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code for the purpose of gathering data on the reef systems of Broward County, Florida. Members are volunteers interested in observing, collecting and documenting physical and biological information and specimens from the natural and artificial reef.
The aim of this origination is to train non-scientists in the proper methodology to gather and store information that is acceptable, retrievable and useful to the reef builders, users and the scientific community through the establishment of a public reef data base. Appropriate agencies will interpret the value of the data gathered off the natural and artificial reefs over an extended period of time. Scientific, commercial and other interested parties will be allowed free access to the data in order to interpret its relation to economic, environmental and recreational activities.
Broward County has been working on a Beach Restoration to make the beaches nice, etc by dredging up sand off shore and putting it up on the beach. This is bad for the reefs and that was the focus behind the research dive that I did on Sunday. Sediment bottles are used to collect samples of the sediment that is on the reefs and pictures are taken to show how the reef has changed on a monthly basis. The reason it is bad to use the sand from off our shore is because the sand out on the reef is different than the sand on the shore. The sand offshore Florida contains silt (contains clay and sand particles that are smaller than the grade sand already on the beach) and silt doesn't settle like sand does. Some silts can take days to settle once its stirred up by dredging, and that causes poor vis on our reefs, the sun gets blocked by the silt and that also effects the reefs, and the reef ends up getting buried as well. The best thing that the County could do to remoras the beaches is to buy the sand from somewhere like the Bahamas and have it shipped over, but because this costs more they don't do it.
During my dive I helped switch out the full sediment bottles with new sediment collection bottles. The bottles are analyzed by a professional lab for content. Also we took 20 frames of photos along both sides of a 10m line. The same 20 pictures are taken every month and comparisons are made to see what has changed. Algae samples are also taken. Also the visibility is measures using a Secchi Disk.
There are 3 dive sites that this is done at: The Barrow Pit, Deep Reef and Shallow Reef. (on the second 2 dives the reefs don't have names other than deep and shallow).
Barrow pit is 92' to the sand, 23 bottom time, 12 minutes ascent. They do everything except for the photos there.
Deep site is 62' sand, 50' on top, we were down for 35 minutes 10 min ascent. This is the dive I did.
Shallow site is 42ft sand, 35 on top. The team that did that dive had a bottom time of 38 mins.
Here are some pics (not from my dive) that show the sedimnet collection bottles and the framer we used during the picture taking portion of the dive.
http://www.geocities.com/sflrrt/0110mnt/pages/Dsc00021.htm
http://www.geocities.com/sflrrt/0110mnt/pages/Dsc00072.htm
