The Aquarium is sponsoring an expedition to explore seamounts, or underwater volcanos, in Costa Rica, along with several leading underwater exploration and research groups. Look for stories and pictures about this expedition from Aquarium explorers. Learn about previous expeditions to study seamounts in the Sea of Cortez and Raja Ampat, Indonesia.

 
Today's post comes from Brian Skerry (at left), New England Aquarium Explorer in Residence and an award-winning National Geographic Magazine photographer who specializes in marine wildlife subjects and stories about the underwater world. 





Long before I head to the field on assignment, I spend many hours thinking of the pictures I hope to make. While my job can be described in many different ways, I ultimately see myself as, quite simply, a storyteller. I use images to bring readers into an undersea realm and introduce them to amazing places and extraordinary creatures.

I have dedicated most of my life to perfecting ways of doing this by producing visuals that will engage people and make them want to learn more, to care, and even to protect these realms. In my books and lectures, I often discuss the many challenges of underwater photography, from limited air supplies to the restrictions of making pictures with a camera locked inside a waterproof housing.

On my current assignment, a story about seamounts for National Geographic magazine, these challenges reached epic proportions. While working on Las Gemelas seamount, the majority of my work would be done using cameras that were out of my hands.

The Argo serves as a launching pad for explorations of seamounts

Working with the engineers at National Geographic, deep-sea camera systems were designed and built for both a submersible I would be diving in and for a remotely operated vehicle (ROV). For both systems I use a laptop connected to the camera housing, inside of which is a second computer that allows me to interface with the camera. I can see exactly what the camera sees and have the ability to access controls, but the process is painfully slow.



Photographer Brian Skerry in the submersible during a dive to a seamount. Look for his photos from the expedition in an upcoming issue of National Geographic magazine.

While inside the submersible, I am essentially using the sub as a 7-ton camera housing, working with the expert pilots to position and fine-tune adjustments to get the composition I need. With the ROV, I am inside a cabin on board the ship, staring intently at a computer screen and pressing the shutter release, while my camera is 700 feet [213 meters] below, whizzing around on an 800-pound vehicle.

Over the last seven days, I have repeatedly climbed into the acrylic sphere on the Deep See submersible and descended to the seamount with my laptop to explore this netherworld of permanent darkness, straining my eyes to find subjects in the glow cast by the sub’s lights. When not in the sub, I have sat elbow-to-elbow with the ROV pilot Kevin Joy, working as one to fly the machine and make pictures. And yes, I have also actually gotten into the water at night, using a hand-held camera to photograph tiny, alien-like animals that live in the water column over this deep-water mountain.

While seven days is a very brief time, especially given the gauntlet of technical problems we all encountered, in the end I made a few very cool frames — images that exceeded my expectations, and which I believe will give readers a small glimpse — a window if you will — into the world of undersea mountains.


Check out previous blogs from this expedition by Greg Stone, senior Vice President of Ocean Exploration and Conservation at the New England Aquarium and Conservation International's chief scientist for oceans; Alan Dynner, New England Aquarium Overseer (and former Chairman of Board of Overseers and Trustee); and Dr. Larry Madin, New England Aquarium Overseer and Executive Vice President and Director of Research at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The Aquarium is sponsoring an expedition to explore seamounts, or underwater volcanos, in Costa Rica, along with several leading underwater exploration and research groups. Over the next couple weeks, look for stories and pictures about this expedition from Aquarium explorers. Learn about previous expeditions to study seamounts in the Sea of Cortez and Raja Ampat, Indonesia.

Today's post comes from Dr. Greg Stone (at left), senior Vice President of Ocean Exploration and Conservation at the New England Aquarium and Conservation International's chief scientist for oceans. 

This post originally appeared on Conservation International's blog.


Costa Rica’s equatorial sun streams through the clear dome of the submarine Deep See. A diver appears, smiles through the Plexiglas, and quickly puts a cover over the sphere so that we do not overheat as we are towed back to the ship after a successful dive to the seamount.

 Argo, the ship hosting the seamount expedition team. (Photo by Greg Stone)

I’ve finally made it to Argo, the mother ship for Deep See, and I’m here with a terrific crew headed by the storied Avi Klapfer. We also have a team of accomplished scientists like Dr. Jorge Cortes from the Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología (CIMAR) and Dr. Larry Madin from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. I am also very happy to have two good friends on board: Alan Dynner and Mike Velings. Mike and I share a passion for chess; he has brought along a board, and we play during the few moments we can find in the days that are richly filled with submarines, ROVs and scuba diving — usually making quick moves as we run out the door to dive.

We are anchored above the Las Gemelas seamounts, 340 miles [547 kilometers] off the coast of Costa Rica. The water is still, there is no wind. Conditions are perfect. Down below, I feel like the scenes of underwater wilderness will never end. Deep-sea sharks, groupers, salps and jellyfish surround us. So far we have made three bluewater scuba dives to study the animals near the surface. Bluewater diving is so called because once in the water, it is blue in all directions — except straight below us, where the seafloor is some 5,000 feet [1,524 meters] down. There, it fades to pitch black.


Some of the team in the submarine Deep See, about to descend. (Photo by Greg Stone)

On this expedition, we have made five dives so far in our “one atmosphere” submarine. Once the hatch closes, it maintains the normal pressure of Earth at sea level. We can dive up to 1,500 feet [457 meters] without worrying about decompression sickness. During these dives, we are tethered together for safety in a rig called a trapeze.

Dr. Larry Madin is an expert on pelagic invertebrates; he and I have been diving together for over 20 years. On this trip, Larry and I have already identified a number of mid-water animals, including ctenophores, jellyfish and salps. These drifting, soft bodied, jelly-like animals are among the most common creatures on Earth, yet we know little about them. Today, Larry said with a laugh, “If a spaceship from another world landed here, their first impression might be that Earth is inhabited by salps.”

As the submarine dives, taking us to another world, we see an underwater mountain, a magnificent formation rising 3,000 feet [914 meters] from the seafloor. We dive down to its summit, about 600 feet [183 meters] from the surface. It is amazing that a mere 600 feet can take you to such a different place, but that is how the ocean works. At this depth the pressure is 18 times greater than the surface. The light is a lovely green, blue, black tint; we call this region the twilight zone of the ocean. The peaks of the Las Gemelas seamount live perpetually in this zone, a wonderful place with prickly sharks; snowy, olive and sailfin groupers; calcareous hydroids; and several species of deep corals.

Tonight we have launched the ROV and saw lanternfish, a type of deep-sea fish with the ability to generate its own light. Occasionally they make excursions to shallower water at night. Which reminds me, it’s now midnight, and I need to get some sleep because photographer Brian Skerry and I will be diving first thing in the morning.