Project: RAPID Response in Gulf of Mexico: Sediment Trap Investigations

Description from NSF award abstract:
In September 2009, two time-series sediment trap and current meter moorings were deployed in the northern Gulf of Mexico to investigate biogenic fluxes settling to the seafloor (and larval recruitment) at two well-characterized and significant sites of combined deep-water coral and chemosynthetic tube-worm colonies (Fisher et al., 2007). Each of these traps, set just above the seabed and in water depths of 400-450 m, have been collecting a new sample of settling material every two weeks since 11 September 2009 and will continue to do so until 2nd July 2010 when their last sample bottle will be rotated shut and the traps will await recovery as part of an already-funded field program (NOAA-MMS) scheduled for November. Serendipitously, however, these two traps are located just 32 nmiles to the NE and 81 nmiles to the WSW of the recent Deepwater Horizon incident and continuing oil release from the seafloor. Continuous monitoring by NOAA has shown that at least one of these two study sites became overlain by oil discharge at the ocean surface by the end of April and that both sites are now overlain by at least light to medium concentrations of hydrocarbons ± dispersant. What remains unestablished at this point, however, is what is happening at depth and what impacts there may be at the Gulf of Mexico seafloor and, specifically, its pristine and unique deepwater coral/chemosynthetic tube-worm colonies. The purpose of this proposal, therefore, is two-fold. First we seek to join a rapid response research cruise to the area to deploy two additional short sediment trap and current meter moorings to ensure that we maintain continuity in the sampling that began 6 months before the incident and remains ongoing at each of the two sites that we had previously targeted as being of most significance in terms of deepwater coral/chemosynthetic tubeworm ecosystems. If we do not achieve that, our time series will end on July 2nd. Second, and anticipating that there will be a wealth of additional studies that many other PIs will wish to pursue, we seek sufficient funds to conduct initial characterization from these samples (plus those from our earlier deployments) as soon as they are recovered (already-funded cruise in November 2010). Specifically, we anticipate generating a suite of archived samples with coregistered information on mass and biogenic flux (to include inorganic and organic carbon content) and preliminary "finger-printing" of any hydrocarbon signatures present in each sample.

Publications resulting from this research:
H.K.White, P-Y.Hsing, W.Cho, T.M.Shank, E.E.Cordes, A.M.Quattrini, R.K.Nelson , R.Camilli, A.W.J.Demopoulos, C.R.German, J.M.Brooks, H.H.Roberts, W.Shedd, C.M.Reddy and C.R.Fisher. 2012. Impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on a deep-water coral community in the Gulf of Mexico. PNAS, v.109, p. 20303-203.