Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 10/23/2007 - 07:54
Forums
Antarctic Undersea ROV

Hi Mindy,

I truly enjoy following your journals. I loved seeing your photos, in particular the under-water photos of the organisms.

Before I was a teacher, in the early 80ties, I worked in research on benthic communities in the Atlantic: "The long term effects of drill site lubricants on the benthic community".. among others. The technology has changed so much and my students will benefit greatly leaning about the progress in benthic research using modern photography during the IPY!Smile

We used a huge underwater tow-sled back then (not suitable for work in ice, of course), with a strope light that took pictures/slides every 7 seconds while we transected areas in the Atlantic as long as 24 hours at times. My job included working with the under water sled team from Columbia University, Lamont Doherty Gelogical Observatory, Palisades, N.Y.,  loading the 35mm slide film for a 24 hour under-water sled transect, developing the slides on board of the ship, and analysing the slides back home. Imagine identifying all those slides! So, Mindy, these are my questions:

1. Is your team preparing for a long term study to establish locations of structures first?

2. Will the team go back to these locations and for how many years? Will it be a monitoring project, in other words? 

3. What is the team trying to find out? What is the team's prediction?

4. Does the undersea ROV take still shots or a video?

5. Are you invloved in the identification of the oganisms?


Keep up the great work!! 

I am looking forward hearing form you and following your work.

When you return in November, I am about to leave for the South Pole. 

Cheers for now and nostalgic benthic greetings to you and your team!!

Elke

 

 

 

Tue, 10/23/2007 - 18:47

Mindy Bell

Hi Elke,I understand and appreciate your interest in benthic invertebrates coming from your scientific background in this!
The best place to answer these questions is on the SCINI website which is at scini.mlml.calstate.edu but I'll take a short stab at them.
1. One of the main functions of SCINI will be to find and map structures that were emplaced on known dates in the 1960's by Paul Dayton and John Oliver.   They are too deep for scuba divers under present safe-diving regulations to go visit again!   They also want to see new areas that are in the 40 m to 200 m zone that is rarely studied by marine scientists as it is usually in a surge zone. It is not prone to surge in Antarctica because it is covered by ice!
2. Stacy has been revisiting these sites for almost two decades, and Paul Dayton and John Oliver were here from the 1960's so there is already long-term data on these sites.  The long-term studies will continue as long as Stacy gets funding.
3. There are many questions the team wants to answer.   Some have to do with the rate of growth of different organisms such as sponges, the settlement patterns of different benthic invertebrates on different substrates at different depths, etc.  How human impacts (such as the sewage outfall at McMurdo before the new sewage-free system began) have altered community structure, etc.
4. The ROV takes video but can then capture stills from that video using special  software.  It takes great pictures using an Elphel camera.  If you are interested in camera details you can go to www3.elphel.com/
5. I am not involved in the identification of the organisms.  Stacy prepares her samples here and then transports them home for identification at a later date.  Her primary workplace is the benthic ecology lab at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories when she is not here, and there are a team of great people picking and sorting and identifying critters there.
Thanks for the great questions!  I'll follow you at Pole! 

Sat, 10/27/2007 - 11:55

Elke Bergholz

Hi Mindy, Thank you so much for your great summaries and all the references.
Your work with your reserach team involves great examples of environmental impact and ecological succession! The amount of longterm data available is amazing.
In addtion to my own examples of drill site impacts I will be able to use it for my ecology section within the IB program (International Bacheloreate= international high school deploma). The effort of research near ice is in-itself a  wonderful lesson to teach. How much more we can do with improved technology!
Question:
1. What method of benthic monitoring did Stacy use in the 60ties?
2. Is similar benthinc research going on in the Arctic?
 
Looking forward to hear from you again 
Elke 
 

Sat, 10/27/2007 - 16:21

Mindy Bell

Hi Elke,1. Dr. Paul Dayton did the early work in the 60's.  Paul's student was Dr. John Oliver who continued the benthic studies.  Stacy was John's student and first came to Antarctica as a graduate student in 1988.  So there is a continuation of work that has been done in this area for 40 years!  It is obviously important to have a continuity of methodology for these studies so the data over the years can be compared, but some technological improvements (dry suits over wet suits, better cameras, etc.) have occurred.
Basic methods include photography, transect lines, and sampling.  Stacy uses the same protocols at every site.  She revisits every site (if possible) on the years she gets down here.  She has successfully managed to get funding to come to Antarctica for 11 seasons out of the past 19 years.
2. I am sure there is similar benthic monitoring in the Arctic, and maybe there will be a PolarTREC teacher that can go on an expedition there someday!  I don't know any people involved, however.