It’s said that we know less about the deep sea than we do about our own solar system, and that exploring the ocean’s abyss is truly our last remaining frontier. We’ve mapped almost none of it, and the ecology and life of the deep-sea is believed to be so incredibly diverse that each expedition that has us probing its depths, offers the possibility of new and exciting discoveries. Fortunately, I had the privilege to recently take part in such an expedition. Craig McClain, Executive Director of Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON), and founder of DeepSeaNews.com, received funding from the National Science Foundation to pursue what he affectionately calls Project Wood Fall. This smart and insightful man, who recognizes a true artist with vision when he sees one, wrote me into the grant so I could document the expedition. More importantly though, the project is conducted with the help of Oceaneering, an underwater engineering and applied technology company, who pilots the remotely operated vehicles (ROV) allowing us to work at such great depths. Exploring the deep ocean would be impossible without ROV’s.
The goal of the of the first leg of Project Wood Fall was to deploy nearly 200 pieces of wood at various spots along the perimeter of the Mississippi Canyon in the Gulf of Mexico, and on the sea floor between depths of 2000 and 2500 meters. Sometime within a year to a year and half we plan to go back to recover the wood and see what cool, and possibly new, critters have landed, lived on, and have grown on the wood. But underneath the excitement of peeking into this seldom experienced habitat, the project will look at how marine organisms respond to changing food supplies as a result of climate change and ocean acidification.
The images here, of course, are from the deployment trip we recently made. My goal was simply to highlight the cool animals that were recovered, while making the scientists look like they were doing “sciency” things. The critters were placed in glass tanks and aquaria that were draped in black velvet, and were lit up with regular’ole Nikon strobes that were remotely triggered with Pocket Wizards. The images of the scientists were lit with the same strobes, but I used blue and orange gels to give some effect. Enjoy the images, and stay tuned for images from our recovery trip!