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Our deepwater reefs may get protection
Plan could affect fishing, pipelines
By David Fleshler | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted January 7, 2007
More than 1,000 feet beneath the ocean surface, in black water illuminated only by the spotlights of research submarines, lies a world of snow-white coral, rock pinnacles as high as skyscrapers and vast communities of crabs, fish, shrimp and other creatures.
Deepwater coral reefs, virtually unknown to scientists until the past few years, cover thousands of square miles of ocean floor off Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale, the Carolinas and Georgia, Norway, Great Britain and other countries.
The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which sets fishing rules for federal waters in the Southeast, has proposed protecting about 23,000 square miles of these reefs by prohibiting anchoring, bottom-fishing and other destructive activities.
The protection plan, likely to be voted on within the next year or so, could affect proposals to lay natural-gas pipelines from the Bahamas to South Florida. It could also affect commercial fishing, although not much currently occurs on the reefs.
While bottom trawlers have mown down deepwater reefs off central Florida, Norway and Sweden, fishery managers say there's no indication of damage to the reefs currently up for protection. But they don't want to wait until they're threatened to act.
"These areas are so high in biodiversity and they're so unexplored," said Myra Brouwer, a biologist with the fishery management council, based in Charleston, S.C. "The council wants to put in protection measures before anything happens."
Corals are tiny animals -- similar to sea anemones -- that create skeletons from minerals drawn from the ocean. They capture prey with tentacles tipped with stinging capsules.
Forming branches, mounds and other shapes, with a thin layer of live coral on the surface, the skeletons are among the most ancient structures created by living creatures. In the deepwater reefs, black corals and sea fans live on coral skeletons that date to the dawn of the Roman Empire.
Initial clues to the reefs' existence showed up in the 1800s when deep-sea trawlers hauled up broken pieces of unfamiliar coral. But the actual reefs, which could extend to depths of more than half a mile, remained as inaccessible as the surface of Venus until the development of deep-diving submersibles, multi-beam sonar and automated landing vehicles that could rest on the ocean floor for up to a year gathering information.
"Where the reefs are is a very tough environment to work in," said John Reed, senior scientist at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce, who made several descents to the reefs off the southeastern United States. "It's a cold and black environment. We have zero light and the temperature is just above freezing."
Reed visited the reefs aboard the Johnson-Sea-Link, a four-person submersible that can dive to 3,000 feet, where the weight of the water reaches 10 times normal atmospheric pressure.
Peering through a 5-inch-thick acrylic bubble, he saw scenes that resembled a rugged mountain range above the tree line. Steep escarpments, with coral rubble at their base, led up to narrow peaks covered with dense thickets of Lophelia, a delicate branched coral that dominates many deepwater reefs.
Unlike the brilliant pink, orange and red corals of shallower reefs, Lophelia is stark white because it lacks the tiny pieces of photosynthetic algae that provide shallow-water corals with color and nutrition.
He saw dozens of narrow pinnacles built on rock and the skeletons of dead coral, many reaching heights of 100 or 200 feet. And one off South Carolina reached 500 feet, the height of a 50-story building. These were covered with Lophelia and other corals, as well as sponges, sea fans and lobsters, crabs and other creatures that make their homes among the reefs.
About 8 miles off Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, he explored the Miami Terrace, a limestone formation that begins about 600 feet below the surface and makes a steep and dramatic descent to 1,300 feet. Covering the ridges and slopes are a thick mat of black corals, bamboo corals, Lophelia, sea fans and sponges, abounding in fish and other marine life.
"The Miami Terrace is an incredible structure," he said. "Very rugged limestone. Giant sea fans three or four feet tall. Ten-foot sharks. We saw some incredible stuff."
Most of the deepwater reefs remain in pristine condition. But federal fishery managers and conservationists are aware of damage that heavy bottom-trawling nets have done as they tried to scoop up grouper and other species of the ocean depths.
In the 1980s and '90s, trawlers destroyed large tracts of Oculina coral, a deepwater coral that grows off the coast of Central Florida at shallower depths than Lophelia.
The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which consists of appointees from government, fishing and environmental groups, will hold public hearings and conduct an environmental review before finally designating the reefs for protection.
Gregg Waugh, the council's deputy director, said some fishing probably takes places on the reefs, but not the destructive practice of dragging heavy nets along the ocean floor.
"We want to get it protected before anything happens to it," he said.
Margot Stiles, marine scientist for the environmental group Oceana, which has called for strict restrictions on bottom-trawling, described the protection proposal as "excellent."
Howard Rau, a commercial fisherman based at Port Everglades, takes his 63-foot boat the Joyce Lynn II out to where the depth reaches more than 2,000 feet to catch golden crab. He tries to avoid coral because it could damage his traps, and crabs live on soft bottoms. He has talked to Waugh and thinks the council will refine the protection proposal to allow some fishing in protected zones, so long as there's no coral.
As the council drafts its proposal, scientists are continuing to explore the reefs, discovering new stands of coral and communities of marine life.
"We're finding all these things because they're so poorly researched," said Steve Ross, associate research professor at the University of North Carolina's Center for Marine Science, who has gone on descents to the reefs off Florida. "Our map of the back of the moon is better than our maps off Central Florida."
Our deepwater reefs may get protection
Plan could affect fishing, pipelines
By David Fleshler | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted January 7, 2007
More than 1,000 feet beneath the ocean surface, in black water illuminated only by the spotlights of research submarines, lies a world of snow-white coral, rock pinnacles as high as skyscrapers and vast communities of crabs, fish, shrimp and other creatures.
Deepwater coral reefs, virtually unknown to scientists until the past few years, cover thousands of square miles of ocean floor off Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale, the Carolinas and Georgia, Norway, Great Britain and other countries.
The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which sets fishing rules for federal waters in the Southeast, has proposed protecting about 23,000 square miles of these reefs by prohibiting anchoring, bottom-fishing and other destructive activities.
The protection plan, likely to be voted on within the next year or so, could affect proposals to lay natural-gas pipelines from the Bahamas to South Florida. It could also affect commercial fishing, although not much currently occurs on the reefs.
While bottom trawlers have mown down deepwater reefs off central Florida, Norway and Sweden, fishery managers say there's no indication of damage to the reefs currently up for protection. But they don't want to wait until they're threatened to act.
"These areas are so high in biodiversity and they're so unexplored," said Myra Brouwer, a biologist with the fishery management council, based in Charleston, S.C. "The council wants to put in protection measures before anything happens."
Corals are tiny animals -- similar to sea anemones -- that create skeletons from minerals drawn from the ocean. They capture prey with tentacles tipped with stinging capsules.
Forming branches, mounds and other shapes, with a thin layer of live coral on the surface, the skeletons are among the most ancient structures created by living creatures. In the deepwater reefs, black corals and sea fans live on coral skeletons that date to the dawn of the Roman Empire.
Initial clues to the reefs' existence showed up in the 1800s when deep-sea trawlers hauled up broken pieces of unfamiliar coral. But the actual reefs, which could extend to depths of more than half a mile, remained as inaccessible as the surface of Venus until the development of deep-diving submersibles, multi-beam sonar and automated landing vehicles that could rest on the ocean floor for up to a year gathering information.
"Where the reefs are is a very tough environment to work in," said John Reed, senior scientist at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce, who made several descents to the reefs off the southeastern United States. "It's a cold and black environment. We have zero light and the temperature is just above freezing."
Reed visited the reefs aboard the Johnson-Sea-Link, a four-person submersible that can dive to 3,000 feet, where the weight of the water reaches 10 times normal atmospheric pressure.
Peering through a 5-inch-thick acrylic bubble, he saw scenes that resembled a rugged mountain range above the tree line. Steep escarpments, with coral rubble at their base, led up to narrow peaks covered with dense thickets of Lophelia, a delicate branched coral that dominates many deepwater reefs.
Unlike the brilliant pink, orange and red corals of shallower reefs, Lophelia is stark white because it lacks the tiny pieces of photosynthetic algae that provide shallow-water corals with color and nutrition.
He saw dozens of narrow pinnacles built on rock and the skeletons of dead coral, many reaching heights of 100 or 200 feet. And one off South Carolina reached 500 feet, the height of a 50-story building. These were covered with Lophelia and other corals, as well as sponges, sea fans and lobsters, crabs and other creatures that make their homes among the reefs.
About 8 miles off Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, he explored the Miami Terrace, a limestone formation that begins about 600 feet below the surface and makes a steep and dramatic descent to 1,300 feet. Covering the ridges and slopes are a thick mat of black corals, bamboo corals, Lophelia, sea fans and sponges, abounding in fish and other marine life.
"The Miami Terrace is an incredible structure," he said. "Very rugged limestone. Giant sea fans three or four feet tall. Ten-foot sharks. We saw some incredible stuff."
Most of the deepwater reefs remain in pristine condition. But federal fishery managers and conservationists are aware of damage that heavy bottom-trawling nets have done as they tried to scoop up grouper and other species of the ocean depths.
In the 1980s and '90s, trawlers destroyed large tracts of Oculina coral, a deepwater coral that grows off the coast of Central Florida at shallower depths than Lophelia.
The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which consists of appointees from government, fishing and environmental groups, will hold public hearings and conduct an environmental review before finally designating the reefs for protection.
Gregg Waugh, the council's deputy director, said some fishing probably takes places on the reefs, but not the destructive practice of dragging heavy nets along the ocean floor.
"We want to get it protected before anything happens to it," he said.
Margot Stiles, marine scientist for the environmental group Oceana, which has called for strict restrictions on bottom-trawling, described the protection proposal as "excellent."
Howard Rau, a commercial fisherman based at Port Everglades, takes his 63-foot boat the Joyce Lynn II out to where the depth reaches more than 2,000 feet to catch golden crab. He tries to avoid coral because it could damage his traps, and crabs live on soft bottoms. He has talked to Waugh and thinks the council will refine the protection proposal to allow some fishing in protected zones, so long as there's no coral.
As the council drafts its proposal, scientists are continuing to explore the reefs, discovering new stands of coral and communities of marine life.
"We're finding all these things because they're so poorly researched," said Steve Ross, associate research professor at the University of North Carolina's Center for Marine Science, who has gone on descents to the reefs off Florida. "Our map of the back of the moon is better than our maps off Central Florida."
