Building off the successes of an Office of Ocean Exploration (OE) expedition to Davidson Seamount in 2002, this project will focus on deep-water corals. The week-long expedition in 2002 was the initial effort to characterize the biology and geology of the Davidson Seamount, 1,250 - 3,700 meters deep off Central California. Many results and products from this cruise are relevant to OE, including ocean science issues, education, outreach, and resource management. The focus of the proposed 2005 cruise would be to expand on the exploratory results of our last seamount expedition to investigate processes that generated coral distribution patterns. We will use a simple model derived from results of the last cruise to test our understanding of coral distribution, and use this model to guide exploration in other regions of the Seamount (still over 99.98% unexplored.) Specific regions of the seamount will be targeted based on a topographic index, substratum type, and coral species depth records. Complementary studies of the biodiversity and population dynamics of seamount fauna will include collections of corals for taxonomic studies, and age and growth studies of corals using innovative radiometric techniques. Addressing the public interest in seamounts, corals, and exploration, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) will record imagery from Davidson Seamount to feature in an upcoming television series, co-produced with the Discovery Channel, for broadcast in the United States and internationally. The Sanctuary West Coast Visitor Center and Monterey Bay Aquarium have plans to feature seamounts and corals in future exhibits, and high-definition video imagery, as well as research findings will be pivotal in the exhibit development.

This summer, with the help of the Alvin submersible, a multidisciplinary team of scientists and educators visited several little known seamounts in the North Atlantic, along with at least one previously unexplored seamount, to study various aspects of deep-sea octocorals and other organisms living on and around the seamounts. The primary objective was to map, collect, and identify deepwater corals, fishes, and miscellaneous invertebrates from the seamounts, with special attention to whether corals are most abundant at the crest of the seamount and whether they form important habitat for other species, such as benthic fishes, when the corals are particularly abundant.

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The 2004 Gulf of Alaska Seamount Expedition will use the deep submergence vehicle (DSV) Alvin to explore five large seamounts. Giacomini, Pratt, Welker, Denson, and Dickens seamounts stretch over a 400-nautical-mile section of the northeast Pacific, called the Kodiak-Bowie Seamount Chain. Operating from a base aboard R/V Atlantis, scientists will dive to depths of up to 3,500 m to conduct a series of biological and geological investigations on these ancient volcanoes. All four of the Principal Investigators aboard this cruise were part of the Gulf of Alaska Seamount Expedition in 2002, as were other scientific researchers, many of the ship's crew, the sub's crew, and the cruise coordinator. The research foci of this mission include: - Geologic dating and characterization of the seamounts - Deep-sea coral distribution and genetics - Community ecology of deep-sea corals - Investigation of the microbial, invertebrate, and fish communities associated with the corals

This data set contains oceanographic data (CTD Data, Fathometer, Knudsen echo sounder, Mocness plankton tow net, Oxygen, and Salinity). The researchers used a submersible, a remotely operated vehicle, and other technology to assess and record conditions in the water column and on the seafloor to gather baseline data along Florida's shelf edge.