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Deepseawaters
Home Deep
Sea Explorations2007:Exploration
2007: Exploring the Inner Space of the Celebes Sea
 Our
expedition takes us to unexplored waters south of the Philippine
Islands, in search of the strange, and possibly unknown, fishes,
jellyfish, squids and shrimp that live in the dark deep waters
of the Celebes Sea. Surrounded by much shallower ocean waters,
the Celebes plunges to over 5,000 meters, and in these waters
there may well be species that have evolved in isolation from
other surrounding waters, waiting to be discovered with modern
exploration tools.
We'll
be diving in the middle of the richest marine environment
on Earth - the "coral triangle" of Southeast Asia. This region,
including the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, is known
to have the highest species diversity of shallow water marine
animals. The same may be true for deep-water creatures,
but nobody knows yet. Using a remote-operated vehicle (ROV)
that can dive to 3,000 meters, we'll get High-Definition video
and still pictures, and collect specimens to bring back for
study. With multiple large trawl nets, we plan to collect
even more samples. Baited cameras moored to the bottom will
snap photos and video of big animals attracted to the free
meal. Up in the warm surface waters we'll go SCUBA diving
to film and collect the delicate zooplankton.
 Our
area of operation will be just to the southeast of the Sulu
Islands, and we expect to spend two weeks working there. We
will be on the research vessel Hydrographer Presbitero,
operated by the Philippines National Mapping and Resource
Information Authority. We will be joined by scientists from
several Philippines universities and research agencies.
Working
together with our colleagues from the Philippines, we'll use
all these samples, videos, images and data to increase our
understanding of the biological composition and the nature
of the deep midwater environment of the Celebes Sea, and compare
it with what is known about other deep-sea regions around
the world.
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