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Underwater vehicles may change what we know about our reefs
Photo by Eric Hasert
Brennan Phillips, engineer and vehicle operator, of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, performs maintenance on one of the two autonomous underwater vehicles that will be used to create high-definition sonar maps of the Lophelia coral reefs off the Treasure Coast. The two new torpedo-like crafts are aboard the R/V Seward Johnson research vessel docked at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in northern St. Lucie County before heading out to the reefs on Thursday.
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Before two brand-new, first-of-their-kind autonomous underwater vehicles begin exploring the depths of the world's oceans, they'll get their feet wet in the water off the Treasure Coast.
Known as AUVs, the unmanned, untethered submarines will be aboard the Seward Johnson, a research vessel of the Fort Pierce-based Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, when it sets sail today on a mission to create high-definition sonar maps of the deep-water Lophelia coral reefs.
The Lophelia reef mapping is particularly important because the coral is threatened by bottom-trawling fishing boats and possible offshore oil exploration and drilling.
"If you destroy reef, you destroy habitat," said John Reed, a research professor at the Harbor Branch division of Florida Atlantic University who has been studying and working to protect these deep corals for more than 30 years. "And if you destroy habitat, you destroy fisheries. So by fishing on these reefs, we're shooting ourselves in the foot."
The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council is considering setting aside about 23,000 square miles of ocean above the Lophelia Reef along South Carolina and Florida for protection.
"With high-definition maps," Reed said, "we can show exactly where the reefs that need to be protected are and also show areas where it would be OK to fish and explore for oil."
That's where the two AUVs — officially known as Remus 6000s but nicknamed Ginger and Maryann after the ladies of the old TV series "Gilligan's Island" — come in.
Financed by the Waitt Institute for Discovery and developed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the AUVs operate without tethers to a vessel at the sea surface, the unmanned AUVs "mow the lawn," going back and forth on a programmed path to create overlapping data lanes that combine to create a comprehensive map of the ocean bottom.
Dr. Dominique Rissolo, executive director of the nonprofit Waitt institute, said the Harbor Branch project offers an opportunity to break in the multi-million-dollar hardware while "doing good science and producing data that's immediately relevant."
Reed has chosen four sites on the Lophelia reef between Fort Pierce and Cape Canaveral — "some of the most pristine and healthiest reefs I've ever dove on," he said — for the AUVs to map.
"We know less about what's on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida than we do about the surface of the moon or Mars," Reed said. "But that's about to change."
Oculina coral reef: Found in 250 to 300 feet of water about 15 miles
offshore from Fort Pierce to Cape
Canaveral.
Lophelia coral reef: Found in 1,200 to 3,000 feet of water throughout the Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean at sites as far north as Norway.
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