for the most part we don’t know what
lies beneath the surface of our oceans
most of the waters and ocean floor
remain unexplored but with new
technology projects are underway to find
out what lies in the deep since 2004 a
team of scientists has been cruising the
Caribbean surrounding Puerto Rico as
well as st. Thomas and st. John islands
in the US Virgin Islands to create a
comprehensive map of the seabed NOAA the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration is the u.s. agency in
charge of mapping protecting and
managing some of these waters they’re
updating old nautical charts so a
nautical chart has soundings on it just
you know discrete locations but our map
is continuous we can see the ups and
downs the the ridges the ledges of the
sea bottom and all of that is important
information for our manager as well as
to make the linkages between the
seafloor habitats and the types of
organisms that are using that the waters
off the coast of st. Thomas and st. John
have important habitats including coral
reefs the waters have protected areas as
well as areas where commercial fishing
is allowed each year the NOAA Ship Nancy
foster zigzags through the water using
sonar to scan the seabed the ship emits
more than 3,500 pings per second in a
wide fan creating an image as if
painting strips of data across the
seafloor weeks of back-and-forth sailing
in a pattern much like mowing a lawn
yield traditional chart information
including bathymetry or depth an
incredible detail but the sonar data
reveals a lot more than depth based on
the intensity of the echo scientists can
tell if the bottom is hard sandy soft
covered in coral sea grass or other soft
plants by combining the sonar data with
direct observations NOAA creates
detailed maps of the seafloor habitat
the ROV is a key to understanding the
sonar data operated by scientists on the
ship it sends back video and still
images then the sonar data can be
combined with the visual data the
researchers are looking for several
answers to questions why are fish going
to a certain location are there
behaviors that are going on are there
certain types of fish that are going
there so they’re kind of a very focused
science application and then there
there’s other science that we conduct
which is applied towards a management
community to effectively manage
commercial fish species and protect
non-commercial sea life officials need
to know the size of fish populations
where they are and their overall health
the ship is equipped with what is
basically a scientific grade fish finder
the technology that I’m using is very
similar to commercial fish finders or
the fish finders that your grandpa might
have on his fishing boat on a lake
except these are scientifically echo
Sounders we transmit a pulse of sound or
a ping that ping is transmitted through
the water column and it reflects off of
anything that’s in the water column
that’s a different density than the
surrounding media that could be the
bottom which is very hard it could be
air bubbles that’s produced by waiks
waves or boats or it could be gas
bladders or swim bladders in case of
fish each night as the ship sails back
and forth off land Taylor’s sonar spots
the fish and adds important information
to the maps the habitats are very
important clearly but we need to better
understand how fish are using those
habitats so we can better understand how
to manage the ab test for the fish after
the sonar runs all night attention turns
to the ROV Brian Costa uses sonar to
pick locations for the ROV to explore
it’s just one of the tools in our
toolbox to create a how-to 10 map we can
get a picture of what’s down there in
the image but we don’t necessarily know
what is growing on top of that that
restructure or what it’s made out of so
that’s where the camera comes in
as researchers pilot the ROV deep under
the sea scientists note the health of
the coral types of fish including the
invasive lionfish and inspect man-made
debris including lost fishing gear and
even newly found shipwrecks all of this
data will help scientists better
understand the reefs here and offer
insights into ocean changes elsewhere
one of the most important things about
the work we’re doing is we’re
characterizing coral reefs that have
never been observed before so we’re
visiting newer is and getting that
baseline of the the health and condition
and the extent of the coral reefs the
NOAA scientists hope eventually to
develop their techniques further so
scientists can someday have maps of all
the world’s sea beds
lies beneath the surface of our oceans
most of the waters and ocean floor
remain unexplored but with new
technology projects are underway to find
out what lies in the deep since 2004 a
team of scientists has been cruising the
Caribbean surrounding Puerto Rico as
well as st. Thomas and st. John islands
in the US Virgin Islands to create a
comprehensive map of the seabed NOAA the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration is the u.s. agency in
charge of mapping protecting and
managing some of these waters they’re
updating old nautical charts so a
nautical chart has soundings on it just
you know discrete locations but our map
is continuous we can see the ups and
downs the the ridges the ledges of the
sea bottom and all of that is important
information for our manager as well as
to make the linkages between the
seafloor habitats and the types of
organisms that are using that the waters
off the coast of st. Thomas and st. John
have important habitats including coral
reefs the waters have protected areas as
well as areas where commercial fishing
is allowed each year the NOAA Ship Nancy
foster zigzags through the water using
sonar to scan the seabed the ship emits
more than 3,500 pings per second in a
wide fan creating an image as if
painting strips of data across the
seafloor weeks of back-and-forth sailing
in a pattern much like mowing a lawn
yield traditional chart information
including bathymetry or depth an
incredible detail but the sonar data
reveals a lot more than depth based on
the intensity of the echo scientists can
tell if the bottom is hard sandy soft
covered in coral sea grass or other soft
plants by combining the sonar data with
direct observations NOAA creates
detailed maps of the seafloor habitat
the ROV is a key to understanding the
sonar data operated by scientists on the
ship it sends back video and still
images then the sonar data can be
combined with the visual data the
researchers are looking for several
answers to questions why are fish going
to a certain location are there
behaviors that are going on are there
certain types of fish that are going
there so they’re kind of a very focused
science application and then there
there’s other science that we conduct
which is applied towards a management
community to effectively manage
commercial fish species and protect
non-commercial sea life officials need
to know the size of fish populations
where they are and their overall health
the ship is equipped with what is
basically a scientific grade fish finder
the technology that I’m using is very
similar to commercial fish finders or
the fish finders that your grandpa might
have on his fishing boat on a lake
except these are scientifically echo
Sounders we transmit a pulse of sound or
a ping that ping is transmitted through
the water column and it reflects off of
anything that’s in the water column
that’s a different density than the
surrounding media that could be the
bottom which is very hard it could be
air bubbles that’s produced by waiks
waves or boats or it could be gas
bladders or swim bladders in case of
fish each night as the ship sails back
and forth off land Taylor’s sonar spots
the fish and adds important information
to the maps the habitats are very
important clearly but we need to better
understand how fish are using those
habitats so we can better understand how
to manage the ab test for the fish after
the sonar runs all night attention turns
to the ROV Brian Costa uses sonar to
pick locations for the ROV to explore
it’s just one of the tools in our
toolbox to create a how-to 10 map we can
get a picture of what’s down there in
the image but we don’t necessarily know
what is growing on top of that that
restructure or what it’s made out of so
that’s where the camera comes in
as researchers pilot the ROV deep under
the sea scientists note the health of
the coral types of fish including the
invasive lionfish and inspect man-made
debris including lost fishing gear and
even newly found shipwrecks all of this
data will help scientists better
understand the reefs here and offer
insights into ocean changes elsewhere
one of the most important things about
the work we’re doing is we’re
characterizing coral reefs that have
never been observed before so we’re
visiting newer is and getting that
baseline of the the health and condition
and the extent of the coral reefs the
NOAA scientists hope eventually to
develop their techniques further so
scientists can someday have maps of all
the world’s sea beds
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