Scientists Peer Into Dark Ocean Canyon

Scientists in an underwater research vessel aptly named Deep Rover have had a unique look at the mysterious inhabitants of the Monterey submarine canyon, the Grand Canyon of the Pacific.

Three marine researchers saw an alien world without sun but filled with light during a monthlong expedition that ended Saturday.

The voyage, funded by the National Science Foundation, was designed to provide clues to the behavior of deep-water animals who live in the area known as the midwater, which extends as far as 1,500 feet below the surface.

‘A Goldfish Bowl’

“It’s utterly fascinating and potentially overwhelming,”’ said expedition leader Bruce Robison, a research biologist with the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The other scientists on the expedition were Edith Widder, an associate research biologist at the institute, and Jose Torres, an associate professor of marine science at the University of South Florida.

The scientists, surrounded by the Deep Rover’s clear dome, sat in the comfortable armchair that is the command center.

The experience is like “lying in bed watching a goldfish bowl,” Torres said.

“It’s like nothing else I’ve ever done,” said Robison.

Despite a century of study, there have not been many explorations by marine biologists into deep water. The $250,000 cost of the series of dives is part of the reason, Robison said.

The dives were not intended to explore the canyon, an estimated 150 miles long in all its branches and extending as much as 10,000 feet below the surface along the outer continental shelf.

The expedition was designed to take advantage of the fact that the canyon is close to shore, allowing the researchers to study the animals of the deep within just a few miles of the coast.

Teeming With Life

Using a video camera provided by Sea Studios of Monterey and financed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the three have documented a literal blizzard of life.

The deep, dark world is filled with luminescent animals, mainly jellyfish and their relatives.

Biologists call them “marine snow.” The video pictures show them swirling like snowflakes around the five-inch-thick Plexiglas globe that makes up the body of the Deep Rover.

Widder spent much of the time on her dives in darkness about 1,500 feet down, watching animals that have never seen the sun generate light with their own bodies.

Most Are Luminescent

“Better than 90%” of all animals in the deep are luminescent, she said.

Robison was elated when he captured on videotape “the most beautiful animal in the ocean,” a jellyfish called a colobonema that sets its tentacles pulsing with an electric blue light.

The researchers want to find out why the animals use light. Some may use it to attract mates, while others may be more interested in luring prey, Widder said. There is even a theory that holds that if a predator is chasing them, they “light you up, making you easy prey for somebody else.”

Robison was asked about the practical application of the research.

“I don’t know about the applications of this knowledge except, how will we ever learn to manage and exploit (life in) the ocean if we don’t learn how it operates in basic ways?”