by Julie
Stewart, MARINE curriculum intern
The NOAA research vessel MacArthur II recently journeyed to the Davidson Seamount, an extinct underwater volcano about 80 miles offshore from the Monterey Peninsula. Our mission was to conduct surveys of the marine mammals and seabirds in the area. The seamount is about 26 miles long by 8 miles wide, and comes as shallow as 1.5 kilometers below the surface (the seafloor otherwise sits around 3.5 kilometers deep). This is a very productive area: as deep currents hit the seamount, they are redirected up towards the surface, so there are high concentrations of krill and other plankton that provide food for higher predators.
While remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) have documented some of the seafloor (discovering amazing soft corals, among other things), little was known about the marine mammal and seabird populations so far from shore. Read more...
