INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Scientists with Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (HBOI) will be lending their expertise during a NOAA-funded expedition to what has been called the “Grand Canyon” of the ocean – the Pacific Ocean’s Marianas Trench.
Deborah Glickson, Ph.D., associate director of the Cooperative Institute for Ocean Exploration, Research and Technology (CIOERT), located at HBOI, will be the geology science lead on Leg 1 of the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument expedition aboard NOAA’s Okeanos Explorer. Shirley Pomponi, Ph.D., executive director of the CIOERT will be the biology science lead on Leg 3 of the scientific cruise.
The mission, sponsored by NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, is to characterize unknown and poorly explored areas of the Monument by mapping the seafloor and searching for undiscovered biological and geological features such as hydrothermal vents, mud volcanoes, fish and coral reef habitat, and deep-dwelling organisms.
“The Marianas Trench offers such a diversity of habitats,” said Pomponi. “The shallow waters near the islands harbor commercially-important fisheries and ecologically valuable coral reef habitats, while the deeper areas are home to volcanoes with hydrothermal vents and novel deep sea creatures. What is most exciting to us is the potential to discover unknown habitats and organisms in both areas.”
Researchers and students will be following along and participating in the cruise from HBOI’s Exploration Command Center, a facility that allows for real-time access to all of the action via telepresence. High-definition cameras capture video imagery from the ocean floor that is transmitted in real-time via satellite from the ship back to HBOI’s command center, as well as 11 others across the country. Researchers and students can also communicate with the scientists aboard ship via chatrooms and teleconference during the dives.
Located in the western Pacific, east of the Philippines, the Mariana Trench is a crescent-shaped subduction zone where two of the Earth’s tectonic plates collide. At the collision point, one of the plates dives beneath the other, creating an ocean trench that is 7 miles at its deepest point. For more information on the Mariana Trench and the associated U.S. National Monument, visit www.fpir.noaa.gov/MNM/mnm_marianas-trench.html.
The NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research is the only federal organization currently dedicated to exploring our unknown ocean. Their unique capabilities in terms of personnel, technology, infrastructure, exploration missions, and data delivery allow scientists to reduce unknowns in deep-ocean areas and provide the high-value environmental intelligence needed by NOAA and the nation to address both current and emerging science and management needs.
For more information on the expedition, contact Carin Smith at (772) 242-2230 or carinsmith@fau.edu, or visit www.fau.edu/hboi.
