Digital Extra: Mountains in the Sea

NOAA

Bear Seamount, the peak closest to the Eastern seaboard, is the crew's first destination.

We like to think that the Earth is a well-known, familiar world. We fly above it and sit indifferently on the aisle, we circle it with satellites that assign precise numbers to every point on its surface. But three-quarters of that surface lies beneath the ocean waves, in the deep and in the dark, where unknown creatures carry on an unseen life.

This voyage aboard the Ron Brown is bringing a crew of scientists and technicians offshore to spy on some of that mysterious territory. Their mission is fueled not only by curiosity, not only by the pure scientific quest to know, but also by a sense of urgency. The world's oceans are in trouble. Big fish are disappearing. Huge trawlers drag nets across the seafloor that wreak havoc on the plants and animals that live there, the marine equivalent of clear-cutting. The very currents and flows of the sea are disrupted by the relentless demands of humanity.

Off the coast of Cape Cod, along a line stretching far to the east, lies a crooked chain of submarine mountains, called seamounts. These ancient volcanoes are deep enough and far enough offshore that they are relatively untouched. Their rough, rugged tops support complex ecosystems that are similar in many ways to near-shore regions that have been widely wrecked by intensive use -- so they offer a look into our past.

Over the next two weeks we will explore these mountains in the sea. Underwater robots will swim along the ridges and valleys to collect samples, while sending live video to pilots on deck. The scientists will scramble to examine and sort and classify and understand all that data, in the hope that what they learn here will help them to protect the marine systems that remain.

The star of this show sits quietly on the aft deck, hunkered down beneath a bright yellow canopy. This is "Big Hercules," the dexterous robot diver, a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that's run by a crew from the Institute for Exploration (in Mystic, Conn.) and URI's Graduate School of Oceanography. Big Herc is getting a shakedown on the seamounts, to be sure its ready for the next cruise after this one, when Bob Ballard will sail the Ron Brown out to the resting place of the Titanic.

On Saturday, we left from Woods Hole, Mass., and steamed all day Sunday to reach our first destination, Bear Seamount. As I write this Monday morning, crews are preparing to launch the ROV overboard for its first foray of the trip. Tomorrow, I'll write more about what we find.