Photo: OET/NOAAįlower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary has been the site of many discoveries since its designation in 1992. Muusoctopus positions itself upside down in a brooding position. Underwater video taken by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) from E/V Nautilus showed thousands of octopuses brooding nests of eggs along a heat vent near the base of Davidson Seamount, a phenomenon that has rarely been seen before. The same year, another sanctuary had an unexpected wildlife finding too when researchers in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary observed what they called deep-sea " octopus gardens". Nancy Foster Scholars, Josh Stewart, helped solve the mystery of where manta rays spend their youth, when he confirmed that the sanctuary is an important nursery habitat for juveniles. Two years later, tracking data from tagged whale sharks helped researchers discover the migration of whale sharks between the northwestern Gulf of Mexico and Mesoamerican reefs. ![]() In these deep sea habitats, methane gas creates a cone of sediment-resembling a volcano and sometimes reaching more than 100 feet high-as it bubbles up through the seafloor. A new habitat type of mud volcanoes with gas seeps was documented for the first time on the Secrets of the Gulf Expedition in 2007. Even the presence of coral reefs in such deep, cold water was a surprise to scientists first exploring the area in the 1950s and was one of the primary reasons the area became a sanctuary. This same sanctuary has yielded other discoveries that surprised scientists, including new species (we'll get to those in the next section), but also new habitats and processes. Today, this underwater blizzard is regularly observed in coral ecosystems around the world. Storm that is their method of reproduction. Usually occurring around full moons in August, some combination of cues from water temperature, light and chemical triggers, and lunar and solar cycles cause certain species of coral to release eggs and sperm in a dense Questions like: How does that happen? Why is this here and not there? What does that do? One of those unexpected answers came in 1990, when divers in what would become Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary witnessed something scientists had never seen in the Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic basin before: the mass spawning of coral reefs. Sometimes a new discovery will answer a question we've asked, or didn't even know to ask. Let's explore the power of wow! Seeing the World in a New Way A coral releases its gametes into the water as part of a mass spawning event in Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. One measure of its achievements is the half-century of discovery of new things-such as shipwrecks, artifacts, species, habitats, and natural processes-that inspire, amaze, and awe us. ![]() From these beginnings the sanctuary system has developed an outstanding science legacy. "Scientific value" is one of the qualities of an area that helps judge its special national significance and thus its fitness as a sanctuary, and in 1984 Congress added a mandate to the MPRSA for NOAA to conduct research as necessary to meet the purposes of the act. ![]() From even before the passage of the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972 (MPRSA), it was clear that science was intended to be central to the creation and management of national marine sanctuaries.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |