Scuba Diving club,
Southern California
Unprecedented
census of the seas begins
The
marine life census will take at least 10 years and $1 billion.
KACHEMAK BAY, Alaska (AP) -- Brenda Konar shoots an
anxious glance over her shoulder but keeps chiseling. The Pacific Ocean hasn't
gone away. In fact, it's gaining on her.
Wedged between slimy
boulders, the marine biologist hacks at the crusty stuff clinging to the ragged
shoreline of the Kenai Peninsula. Frigid seawater seeps through the duct tape
patch on her rubber waders. Her knuckles bleed.
Soon, the world's
second-largest tides will submerge this speck called Cohen's Island, located
250 miles (400 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage.
"We're in so much
trouble," Konar mutters into the wind and rain.
Halfway around the world,
Mike Vecchione shudders as Russian deckhands slap the metal hull of his tiny
submarine. In any language, that echo means "Good to go!"
To where? Two slow, dark
miles (Three slow, dark kilometers) to the bottom of the North Atlantic, to a
spot disconcertingly named the "Charley Gibbs Fracture Zone." The
pressure down there would crumple a truck.
The Smithsonian biologist
curls on a cushion as a crane dangles his vessel over the ocean like a drip
from a faucet.
"I can't believe I'm
doing this," he whispers.
From pole to pole, in
virtually every ocean, scientists from two dozen nations are wrapping up
preliminary field studies. Together the studies will serve as the foundation
for the most extensive project of its kind -- the Census of Marine Life.
The census seeks a
fundamental understanding of all life that relies on the largely unexplored
seas covering most of Earth, increasingly beleaguered by pollution, overfishing
and climate change.
This unprecedented field
guide to millions of species is supposed to be completed in 10 years. It could
cost as much as $1 billion, much of it funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
and governments.
It's a staggering budget.
But it's a fraction of the $55 billion seafood trade or what it costs to clean
up a major oil spill.
For sheer grandiosity, the
census rivals the Digital Sky Map, another Sloan project seeking to pinpoint
100 million celestial objects in one-quarter of the entire night sky.
In some ways, the marine
census is even more ambitious. Certainly, it's riskier.
Biologists must contend with
the same hazards that sailors have been dodging since Odysseus tempted
Poseidon's wrath. That means hurricanes, sharks, icebergs, shoals and riptides.
Sinking boats and busted equipment.
The census is divided into
six topics. Besides Pacific shorelines and the North Atlantic sea floor,
scientists are examining the Gulf of Maine, hydrothermal vents, coastal salmon
runs and the worldwide habits of large fish and mammals.
That tsunami of raw
information will go into an open database that researchers everywhere can use,
similar to the Human Genome Project.
"We're asking
scientists to think beyond their own quarter-mile (a half kilometer) of
beach," said Ronald O'Dor, a Nova Scotia squid expert who has moved to
Washington to coordinate the census. "We don't know what we'll find. We
don't even know what we are looking for."
Scientists expect the census
will shed new light on Earth's fundamental processes, like evolution and
climate. But others expect it will serve more practical purposes.
Environmentalists will use
it to identify threatened species and locations for marine parks. Fishing and
shipping interests believe the observations will make them more efficient --
and profitable. And bio-prospectors hope the census will yield a bounty of new
materials and compounds, ranging from medicines to industrial adhesives.
Fishing's deadly collateral
damage
The census begins in earnest
at a time when the ocean's bounty suddenly appears alarmingly skimpy. Large
fish have been depleted by 90 percent since World War II, and new fishing
grounds are finished within 15 years by industrial fleets that use sonar,
spotting planes and nets stretching 50 miles (80 kilometers).
Their methods do not
distinguish between adults and babies, and they unintentionally kill millions
of other creatures, including 1,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises per day.
Often, undersea habitats are
destroyed, permanently dimming recovery hopes.
Yet until the census'
preliminary studies, nobody could describe with certainty where fish go or the
places they live.
"People think of space
being the final frontier, but most of our planet is very poorly known,"
Vecchione said. "You can't protect something that you don't understand and
you can't use something that you haven't inventoried."
So far, the most startling
results have come from the fish-taggers.
Biologists attach digital
instruments to the backs of the oceans' most athletic swimmers and fearsome
hunters. Known collectively as pelagics, these sharks, tuna, humpback whales,
elephant seals, Humboldt squid, even sea turtles are tracked by satellite on
their mysterious journeys.
Early data from 700 Atlantic
bluefin tuna demonstrate that fish from different regions commingle freely
during migrations ranging from the Texas coast to the Mediterranean.
The results smash
assumptions that bluefin populations never mix and that fleets can intensively
harvest particular regions, such as the Flemish Cap off Canada, without harming
stocks throughout the hemisphere.
Tons of tuna
The stakes are huge.
Globally, 3 million tons of tuna are processed annually. A single bluefin
weighs more than an NFL lineman and fetches $175,000 at Tokyo's seafood market.
But the bluefin population
has been plummeting since the 1980s. International commissions already are
using tagging data to establish more restrictive quotas worldwide.
Beginning this fall,
scientists will begin tracking thousands of additional pelagics to address
broader scientific questions, as well as conservation and commercial concerns.
Among them: In the vastness
of the oceans, does marine life scatter or does it behave similarly to
terrestrial life and congregate?
Early tagging data suggests
some surprising similarities.
"There are hints of
shared corridors that different animals are using and places they will loiter,
like watering holes," said biologist Randy Kochevar of the Monterey Bay
Aquarium.
Tagging also reveals that
pelagics are phenomenal divers, giving them a range across environments far
greater than land creatures. It raises the question of whether latitude and
depth determine species' distribution as latitude and elevation do on land.
For example, you wouldn't
find an African lion venturing to the Arctic. But early census data shows a
bluefin swims at 45 mph (72 kph) from the balmy Gulf to icy Newfoundland, and
can dive 2,000 feet (600 meters) deep in near-freezing water -- all while
maintaining a body temperature of 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26.6 degrees Celsius).
Tags show great white sharks
leave California for Hawaii, often diving more than 2,000 feet (600 meters).
But none would follow
Vecchione nearly 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) down to the Charley Gibbs Fracture
Zone.
Diving into the Very Deep
He scrunches against a tiny
porthole to watch bizarre, gelatinous creatures of the Very Deep drift by.
It is Vecchione's ninth
dive, but his first to this extreme depth -- and the first by anyone to the
Charley Gibbs. It's a spur of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the mountainous undersea
spine where continental plates bump and grind, forming new crust.
Vecchione sailed for more
than a week in mid-June on a Russian ship to reach the blustery location
between Iceland and Canada. The R.V. Akademik Keldysh supports identical
26-foot (7.8-meter) mini-subs, Mir I and II. Both carry a pilot and a
researcher. Vecchione made two dives.
The orange-and-white subs
are circa-Gorbachev, with arthritic robot arms and interiors so cramped that
the passenger can't sit or stand. The muggy cabins are so cramped that while
the pilot sits at the controls, the passenger must perch behind him on a narrow
shelf. Condensation from their breathing drips from the metal ceiling.
A dive lasts more than 12
hours, including long stretches in utter darkness to conserve battery power.
Occasionally, the path is weirdly marked by the pink and blue fireworks of
bioluminescent phytoplankton.
Vecchione's sub drifts down
sheer cliff faces and crests lava hills. It's a Precambrian aquarium teeming
with life forms that emerged 600 million years ago.
Sampling it is dicey because
the creatures' fluid-filled body sacs often explode. So Vecchione relies on
video.
He spots a primitive octopus
drifting like a rubbery hand puppet; an orange frogfish lurching on primordial
fin-legs; a U-shaped worm wriggling in the muck and sporting a purple growth
like a boutonniere.
Vecchione's reconnaissance
will keep him busy all winter identifying "mystery animals." But it's
bad news for fishing boats that must venture ever further.
"The bottom is even
rougher than expected," he reports. "It is not at all
trawlable."
In Alaska, shoreline studies
by Konar and her research partner, Katrin Iken, wrestle with the opposite
problem: too many samples.
The ferocious tide peels
back Kachemak Bay's dreary gray veil to reveal a psychedelic '70s world.
The rocky bottom is a lush
shag carpet of glistening emerald algae and draperies of rubbery brown kelp.
Gold and purple starfish sway like medallions. Clam and oyster shells crunch
underfoot like spilled party snacks.
The University of Alaska
biologists laboriously sample Cohen's and Elephant islands in the bay with the
help of a dozen students. They have already completed surveys at Kodiak Island,
Prince William Sound and the Beaufort Sea above the Arctic Circle.
Others will use similar
methods to examine shorelines in Russia, Japan, Thailand, Chile and Antarctica.
Shorelines are the most
dynamic zone of the unknown marine environment. Beaches erode, rivers pump in
fresh water and nutrients, storms pound and tides rip. Entire communities of
plants and animals can change every few feet (every meter).
Most of the world's
population and industry are crowded along coastlines, so when catastrophe
strikes, those regions suffer the most.
Again, high stakes. Exxon
spent $9 billion trying to clean 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) of coastline
after the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil in Prince
William Sound.
The shoreline holds great
promise, too. Even humble sponges, for example, have yielded anti-cancer
compounds while the spines of another have properties that engineers are
incorporating in fiber-optic cables.
During high tide at Kachemak
Bay, Konar and Iken scuba-dive about 30 feet (9 meters) down to where life
always is submerged. "We pull up laundry bags full of kelp," Konar
says.
From tagging data, they
already knew that elephant seals swim to Alaskan kelp forests all the way from
San Francisco.
At low tide, the steep
slopes of little islands are exposed throughout the bay. They reveal distinct
layers -- barnacles and mussels up high, followed by red algae, brown algae and
the crown of the kelp.
At each layer, the
biologists isolate sections of exposed rocks with a square-meter frame of white
plastic pipe. Iken photographs each square.
They kneel and count every
living thing inside the frame.
Hissing, crackling barnacles
Barnacles hiss and crackle,
squirting bitter mucous in the women's faces. Lime-green sea
"cockroaches" skitter away. Blobby little tunicates -- perhaps the
simplest life form related to humans -- cling tenaciously for the rising tide
to rescue them.
The women scrape all of it
into a pail, then repeat the process dozens of times. They persist through rain
and spitting ice. Their chiseling echoes like gunfire.
In the bay, charter boats
groan with 400-pound (180-kilogram) trophy halibut nicknamed "barn
doors." Humpback whales sing and skyhop. A sea otter sculls by, munching a
sea urchin. He's gray-whiskered and big as a retriever.
None of them count in the
shoreline census. "Not unless they swim through a meter-square," Iken
explains.
There are surprises, even if
they aren't exactly IMAX-worthy.
"Holy cow!" Konar
yelps. "There's 20 sea cucumbers and 10 starfish under this rock."
Within minutes, the tide and
the storm swallow their sites. After a punishing boat ride back to the
mainland, the real census work begins.
Late into the chilly night,
Konar and Iken record their catch under the glaring lights of a laboratory
shed. Much of it resembles what's rotting at the bottom of your refrigerator.
The women keep the door and windows open, and their coats zipped.
"I'm not separating the
little soranthera from the odonthalia," Konar scowls, flicking at a
stubborn seaweed shred on her sleeve.
Iken dumps another pail of
Kachemak salad on the table, giggling.
Hours drag. A scratchy clock
radio plays oldies.
"I like the big
picture," Iken says, waving tweezers and spinning her census dream.
"I want to compare this with a site in California. And Chile.
"And did you know that
nobody is working on gelatinous bioplankton?"
Konar nods. At her elbow
rest 20 more buckets.
Through the open door, they
can hear the tide racing out again.
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Posted September 15, 2003