Sure Squintsalot
Contributor
By now everyone has heard of this largest ever discovered, giant coldwater coral reef that stretches over the Blake Plateau off the coast of Florida and up to South Carolina: an entirely new deepwater reef about the size of Vermont. Here's the paper, in case anyone wants to read it:
The corals are not bleached, but white because they have no need for photosynthetic algae at that depth and rely instead on filter feeding.
Digging around a little, I found the expeditions tracks of NOAA's research vessel, the Okeanos that gathered the side-scan sonar data that made this work possible. The red lines (about 2.5km apart) are the invidual tracks made by the ship while gathering sonar data:
You can zoom into a particular cruise and see just how much mileage was involved in mapping a section of seafloor in detail:
Anyway, if you're looking to kill a few hours diving into something pretty interesting, here's the link:
Mapping and Geomorphic Characterization of the Vast Cold-Water Coral Mounds of the Blake Plateau
The corals are not bleached, but white because they have no need for photosynthetic algae at that depth and rely instead on filter feeding.
Digging around a little, I found the expeditions tracks of NOAA's research vessel, the Okeanos that gathered the side-scan sonar data that made this work possible. The red lines (about 2.5km apart) are the invidual tracks made by the ship while gathering sonar data:
You can zoom into a particular cruise and see just how much mileage was involved in mapping a section of seafloor in detail:
Anyway, if you're looking to kill a few hours diving into something pretty interesting, here's the link:
