Mission & Project Info | NOAA’s Aquarius Undersea Laboratory
Mission Blog

I love night dives at Aquarius!

Tonight we first worked at our “boring sponge” site dominated by Cliona varians. This sponge species actually bores into the coral rock, eventually reducing it to sand and rubble.

Twilight was fading as we swam out of the Aquarius wet porch a little after 7:00 pm. The water was warm and all seemed calm out on the reef. After photo- and video-documenting the site using powerful LED lighting we circled back across the big sand patch on which Aquarius rests- this area is named the Carpenter Basin after the famous astronaut, Scott Carpenter, who was at Aquarius after going into space. The sand patch looked like a snow-covered field between rock fences in New England. The outside lights of Aquarius plus interior lights glowing out of the viewports were a much wilder scene! Herbivorous fish were swirling through the light feeding on plankton attracted by the light. Off the “bow” or the bunkroom end of Aquarius which points north towards Tavernier, the scene was even better! A group of goliath groupers, including several giants weighing over 300 pounds, were hovering and circling just outside the viewport. Frequently they were snapping up unwary fish blinded by the light, making a loud booming sound as they quickly lunged and gulped down sardines and other morsels. Occasionally scales from an unlucky victim cascaded down through the water column, however, groupers feed by quickly opening their mouths and engulfing their prey leaving little evidence and no mess. What an interesting alliance between humans and fish! Several of these goliaths have been around Aquarius for years and we’ve all gotten to know each other. NOAAH, who used to be the little 50 pound baby and now a big boy probably over 150 pounds, swims up when we’re gathering under Aquarius to see what we’re doing. Yesterday I rubbed his tummy! Earl, larger and more cautious, keeps a bit of a distance for now but will relax as the mission goes on. Sometimes the goliaths hang out in the wet porch above the grating we step onto as we suit up to dive- look for photos on the website. After the mission we’ll post some night video of the goliaths “fishing”!

We ended the dive at about 8:20 pm. I hunted for basketstars as we circled above the reef around Aquarius on the way back to the wet porch. What a privilege to experience the ocean at all hours of the day and night. Hopefully our work will contribute to understanding what’s causing reefs around the world to degrade- there’s a lot to be lost if we don’t take care of this special resource.

Now it’s time for that little bunk of mine- I’ll sleep tight knowing that Earl is just outside my window, I mean viewport, watching over us!

Aquanaut Dr. Chris Martens 

(Note that the Aquarius sits in a no-fishing, research only area within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and is regularly patrolled in between missions – one reason the fish life is so wonderful around the habitat – and we want to keep it that way)

Next week training begins for our October mission.  It is an exciting start to what we hope will be a long term program to investigate the impact of ocean acidification on coral reefs.

The impacts of global warming on the ocean and its ecosystems are a matter of worldwide alarm and much speculation. Corals are particularly sensitive to ocean temperature and chemistry. While we are making progress in understanding the impacts of rising temperatures on coral reefs, far less is known about the effects of the sea’s changing chemistry, in particular rising ocean acidity.  Recent research has confirmed that as concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased in the atmosphere so too have levels in the ocean and this has led to a slight lowering of the ocean’s pH.  It is a phenomenon now widely known as ocean acidification.  Along with affecting widespread biological processes, ocean acidification is expected to specifically impact organisms, which create shells or skeletons of calcium carbonate, such as corals.  Evidence, mainly from laboratory experiments, suggests that the calcification rates of many such organisms will decrease as the ocean’s pH declines.  Scientists estimate, based on these results, that calcification rates in the ocean could decrease by 60% within the 21st Century.  This could have a huge impact on corals and the structures and ecosystems they create.  However, controlled experiments in the laboratory simplify the impacts of ocean acidification and probably neglect a wide range of presently unknown environmental, biological, and ecological influences.

The Aquarius undersea laboratory is especially well suited to be at the forefront of in situ studies of ocean acidification impacts on coral reefs and the upcoming mission is an excellent start.  Drs. Chris Martens and Niels Lindquist will lead a team of researchers and technology experts to examine how pH and water chemistry change over hourly, daily, and weekly time frames on the reef, especially right near the seafloor where most of the organisms reside.  They will try to distinguish between local and global pH changes and work with their partners to test state-of-the-art technology for monitoring water chemistry on very fine scales in situ.  We look forward to following their progress and seeing what discoveries they make.

Hope you will all follow along.  Training starts Monday as the aquanaut candidates work with our expert staff to prepare for their time living among the fish and studying a very important topic in today’s changing climate!

Dr. Ellen Prager

Chief Scientist, Aquarius Reef Base