Analyzing and packing

Tomorrow I fly to Juneau to start getting ready for some work up in Tracy Arm - so i'll be switching gears to the Alaskan Fjord Corals blogspot tomorrow, though i'll still update here occasionally as things come up. Remember this is a rolling project, and the next thing to do is to find the funds to come back next year and do a full expedition, no easy task with science funding generally on the downturn. That is why a pilot project this year was so important, to make sure we would have success if we came back with a bigger crew and better equipment. Now we know there are corals deeper, and we know some good spots where they are, the next step is to get a better pictures and samples and try and identify species, habitats and document the water chemistry better.

Documenting the species that live within a National Park is so important, Glacier Bay has been protected for over 80 years, and yet with glacial retreat and species colonization the landscape is always changing, new animals and plants are moving in, naturally, as more land becomes available - and that's not just on the surface too, that's underwater as well! When did these corals get there? How many species are there in the park? How close to the glaciers can they live (with all that sediment in the water coming off of the glaciers, it's amazing they can live here at all!)? What are the requirements for a good coral habitat within the park? Should we be doing more to protect these populations? These are the kinds of questions we are asking and want to find the answers to.

Packing up the camera. This camera is headed back to USGS in Massachusetts (hopefully to arrive after Hurricane Earl has passed by!) to be used on another project. Despite it's small size it has been fantastic, and worked far better than expected for this project. Thanks to Kathy and Dann for sending this out to us! 

Writing up and analyzing the video. This is my task, last night and today i've been making sure all my notes are typed up (always have data in 2 places just in case!), the GPS coordinates are typed in, and any interesting corals on the video pulled out to look at closer. All this data will then be sent to Kathy to put onto a map, ready for choosing sites for next years hopeful expedition! 

And just in time too, it's not hard to stay inside today when it's raining so hard outside! We've had wonderful luck with the weather, September is the wettest month, so we really lucked out with the beautiful sunshine and dry days. Now if the rain could disappear for my Juneau work too that would be fantastic! 

The Project

So what will we be up to in Glacier Bay National Park?

The 2010 expedition is a preliminary expedition, a chance to gain valuable insights on the logistics of working in the park and working with the National Park Service, and an opportunity to get a little bit of data to tempt the taste buds.

Glacier Bay National Park (GBNP) protects unique deep-water fjords, internationally recognized as a refuge for many species of marine mammals (humpbacks, orcas and sea otters to name a few). What lives below in the depths of the fjords, however, is still largely a mystery. A few years ago one of our team, Bob Stone, discovered Red Tree Corals (above) living at shallow depths within the park - to put this in context these corals are usually found much deeper (think 1000m) out in the open ocean. There has been little work deeper than SCUBA depths in the park, and so what lies just out of reach of man is really an unknown.

How much of this coral, and other corals, are there in the park? What other species lie protected in the deepest parts of the fjords? This project aims to find, catalogue and study these corals in an attempt to uncover how and why they live in such shallow areas. Uncovering extensive coral ecosystems in GBNP would also be the first discovery of it’s kind in a US National Park, and so is an important part of cataloguing the diversity of organisms these parks protect and preserve.

The first step this year is to make specific observations for cold-water corals using cameras and taking environmental measurements, and to look at the feasibility of working within a National Park, which will be more than a little different than working in an open ocean environment. So this trip is a small peek and what is down below, be sure to join us on the expedition!

Aloha

Dr W.