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Cerralvo Trough. Bringing home the
bacon.
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We ran a vertical profile to the bottom at
1,600 meters, counting and identifying animals and measuring environmental
parameters like temperature and oxygen content. These profiles have been
part of our survey in each basin we have studied, and they form the basis
of our data set on the effects of oxygen concentration on the vertical
structure of the Gulf's midwater communities.
Serrivomer, a slender midwater predator, sculls with the tip of its tail to hold itself vertically in the water column. We assume that it scans the water above for prey, but its eyes seem too small to be very effective at these depths. Maybe it's tuned in with another sensory system.
This expedition has been a long time
coming. We first began to plan it seriously in 1996, and it was on the
schedule for 1998 and again for 2001, but it was bumped for legitimate
reasons both times. The origin of the Gulf Expedition goes back even
further to MBARI's early days when Dave Packard, Chuck Baxter, and Dick
Barber talked about where we would like to take our new technology when we
finally had a ship with long enough legs. I think the R/V Western Flyer
was destined to make this trip as soon as she got her name, and she and
her crew have more than lived up to our early aspirations. This leg has
been a big success for us, and we thank Ian
Young, Buck Reynolds, and
their respective crews for the hard work and
expertise that carried us through. I first visited the Gulf of California so
long ago that John Steinbeck was still alive. It was aboard Stanford
University's research vessel Te Vega, a 136 ft. white-hulled, two-masted
schooner so beautiful she took your breath away. Ten of us students joined
her in Mazatlan, and we spent the next three months studying the biology
of the Gulf from the subtidal to the deep sea. The most valuable aspect of
that experience was our intimate association with the sea. We lived and
worked so close to the water that it became our own habitat as well.
Today, with MBARI's advanced technology, we have extended that intimate
association through the water column to the bottom of the Gulf's deepest
basins. We have explored the Gulf from an entirely new scientific perspective, and the kinds of things we are learning are themselves brand new. I feel very fortunate to have a career that has taken me from the deck of that sailing ship, to the very cutting edge of modern oceanography. The Gulf of California is a special place for me, but I know that every one of my colleagues on this expedition feels the same way. There is no substitute for experiencing the ocean directly... |