Inner-space trek

During the spring Oculina expedition, aboard the NASA’s 176-foot ships Liberty Star and Freedom Star, Reed was among a team of scientists, support personnel, and media types who looked on as a camera mounted to a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) documented in real-time the contours and conditions of the ocean floor. The view afforded was a spectacular one – an inner space every bit as exotic as images transmitted by NASA from the surface of Mars. The Oculina reefs are home to many fish species, such as red grouper, scamp, tattlers, yellowtail reef fish, bigeyes, rough-tongue bass, amberjack and many more, including some species that are of considerable economic importance to the South Atlantic fishing industry (Figure 3). These fish species rely on the health of the Oculina, and their association with deep-sea coral has been long confirmed. For example: Oculina reefs have traditionally been home to grouper spawning aggregations.

Primary among the objectives of the 2003 expedition were to understand changes in the Oculina HAPC coral and fish populations over the past twenty years and to establish a monitoring baseline for future comparisons.

Evidence of coral destruction was at times overwhelming – once rich thickets, rendered rubble, no fish in view; subterraneous ghost towns (Figures 4 and 5).