Vol. 2, No. 4 Contents Headline Back Issues Fall 1998
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Sustainable Seas Expeditions Sylvia Earle to dive deep into Stellwagen Bank in July '99 Editor
The series of deep water dives into each of the US's 12 National Marine Sanctuaries is being undertaken by the National Geographic Society (NGS) and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to conduct deep-water exploration, and to raise public support for ocean conservation. The NGS and Stellwagen Bank web sites will provide reports from the expeditions, which are scheduled to begin in California in April. Dives are to be made into Stellwagen Bank in July 1999 and again in 2000. According to NOAA, the project "has the potential to produce significant scientific discoveries and extraordinary educational experiences for millions of vicarious participants, and the data gathered will provide stronger foundations for marine research and conservation policies." Using a small, maneuverable submersibles called DeepWorker, built by Nuytco Research Ltd. in Vancouver, British Columbia, Earle will lead underwater expeditions to photographically document each sanctuary's plants and animals. The subs will enable expeditioners to dive deeper than conventional diving gear would allow down to 2,000 feet/about 600 meters. "We have only four months a year to cover all the sanctuaries," Earle said at an October 19 talk at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, noting that another goal of the project, "is to establish permanent, fixed stations we can return to repeatedly." She described the opportunity to undertake the sanctuary expeditions as a fortunate alignment of interests, technological developments, and available funding. A $5 million grant from the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund and $775,000 from the National Geographic Society are supporting the project. Earle's Oakland, California-based company, Deep Ocean Exploration and Research Inc. (DOER), is providing operational and logistics support. Other collaborators include the US Navy, which, along with NOAA, is providing ships needed for the expeditions; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute; the Mote Marine Laboratory; the Center for Marine Conservation; SeaWeb; and the Jason Foundation. Unknown territory Full exploration of the ocean is long overdue, according to Earle who asserted, "We're still just at the Lewis and Clark stage of exploration, even in our own back yards." The expeditions into the National Marine Sanctuaries are just a piece of what remains to be investigated, she maintains. Unlike many sanctuaries that have not been subject to deep-water exploration at all, Stellwagen Bank at about 656 feet/200 meters deep is relatively shallow, and has been researched quite a bit, according to Sanctuary Manager Brad Barr. "We probably have some of the most studied places. We've been to the deepest portions with manned submersibles and remotely operated vehicles," he said, noting that "major mapping projects" and undersea research to characterize fish habitat have already taken place at Stellwagen Bank. But, he said, "There's a lot we don't know despite the fact that we've done quite a bit of work. We hope Sustainable Seas will help us raise the profile of some of the issues we're working with." Specific goals for the Stellwagen expeditions will include documenting the impact of fishing and other human activity on the bank, and studying the deep rock reef habitat where redfish live. Barr said researchers in California are studying the same fish and the expeditions will "give us a sense of whether some exchange of research data would be valuable." Earle told the MIT audience that she is working with sanctuary managers to develop the instrumentation and methods necessary to monitor "basic characteristics of water" such as temperature and salinity, which she described as "things we've collected for years at the surface," but not in the ocean's depths. "There will be quite a bit of preliminary work," that will be done before the Stellwagen dives, according to Barr, including scouting dive sites and setting up ship-to-shore connections for live telephone and video links.Denizen of the deep
In 1979 she set the still-unbroken record for the deepest untethered dive 1,250 feet/381 meters off the island of Oahu in a specially pressurized suit. She also holds a record for a 3,000-foot/914-meter dive in a one-person submersible called Deep Rover, owned by Nuytco Research Ltd. Earle's company, DOER, has provided consulting and support services for remotely operated vehicles and submersible operations including developing specialty cameras and manipulator arms that can gather evidence from the underwater world. Earle describes this as a far cry from hanging a bucket or net over the side of a vessel to bring up bits and pieces of the ocean floor that researchers then have to piece together and decipher. But, she told the MIT audience, no matter what the capabilities of a high-tech robot investigating the deep, "there is no substitute for the human presence on the spot when we can pull it off." In the early 1990s, Earle served as NOAA's chief scientist. And, not surprisingly, she has written numerous publications, including her 1995 book, Sea Change. Aquatic advocacy Along with Earle's impressive resume, her ability to raise public awareness about marine systems lies in her infectious passion for the ocean and her drive to educate others about its importance. Her expertise, eloquence, and enthusiasm have led to her appointment by the National Geographic Society as its 1998 Explorer in Residence. Time magazine named her "Hero for the Planet" in its October 5 issue. Earle's affinity for the ocean budded as she grew up on the coast of New Jersey, and fell in love with "the critters" that she encountered during hours and hours spent at the seashore. When her family later moved to Clearwater, Florida, her interest only intensified. She had to find out more about it. That irresistible curiosity drove her to build a life and career devoted to understanding marine systems, even as she raised a family of her own, and continues as she watches her three young grandsons develop their own curiosity about their world. Though enamored of the ocean's animal life, botany is Earle's specialty. She believes that understanding plants, which feed and shelter other organisms, is key to understanding the system in which they live. She has made a lifelong project of cataloging every species of plant living in the Gulf of Mexico. The ocean, according to Earle, "is at risk because we can't see it. We need to invest in trying to understand the nature of the place." She believes that as people learn more about how the marine world works, they will realize humans are a part of that system, not separate from it. This realization, she explained, is important to understanding that our use of marine resources has to take into account their role in the survival of the entire marine system and the planet. But while Earle is concerned that people have waited a long time to consider these issues, she said, "our cultures are finally realizing that, while the sea is resilient, it's not infinite."
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Plymouth, Massachusetts - Thousands of people each year see the surface waters of Stellwagen Bank, off the coast of Massachusetts, from the deck of a vessel. But next July, Sylvia Earle one of marine science's most accomplished researchers and a passionate advocate for the marine environment will take a much deeper look than most at the Gulf's only US National Marine Sanctuary, as part of a five-year series of Sustainable Seas Expeditions.
The Sustainable Seas Expeditions will bring Earle into a world in which she feels quite at home. She has spent most of her career conducting research, much of it underwater, leading more than 50 expeditions, totaling 6,000 hours under the ocean's surface. In 1970 Earle led the women's Tektite expedition, sponsored by the US government, in which a group of scientists lived in an enclosed habitat on the ocean floor 50 feet/15 meters below the surface. The expeditioners conducted two weeks of intensive underwater research, unhindered by the daily decompression routine required when making deep water dives from the surface, although they did have to undergo the process at the end of their mission.