Marine Research and Exploration
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DEEP-SEA CORALS & SPONGES

Together with our partners,  we are  working to explore and discover sensitive coral and sponge habitats off the coast of California, to help protect these critical deep-sea ecosystems. 
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Like their shallow-water cousins, deep-sea corals and sponges create large structures that support rich and abundant communities of fish and other invertebrates, many of commercial importance. Deep-sea corals and sponges grow slowly and live a long time – a black coral like the one pictured above was found to be over 4,200 years old, and thousand year-old individuals are common.

These “old-growth forests of the deep ocean” are very vulnerable to bottom-contact fishing, especially trawling, which can destroy an ecosystem that has been in place for millennia. The waters off the US West Coast still contain large colonies of corals and sponges, along with a myriad of other organisms that depend on them. The challenge is to find these communities before they’re destroyed.

We have joined this effort to locate and document deep-sea corals  off the coast of California in partnership with   Marine Conservation Institute (MCI) and support from   National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and   OCEANA.  Using our unmanned robotic submarine, the   ROV Beagle, we are gathering data that will help us identify remaining hotspots of deep sea corals and sponges. This effort will inform management actions, assisting in the protection of these ancient ocean forests.

​More specifically, this data will be used to generate predictive distribution maps, incorporated into NOAA's deep sea data portal for scientific researchers, and presented to resource managers, including Pacific Marine Fisheries Council (PMFC) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). 
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR RECENT EXPEDITION TO THE CHANNEL ISLANDS
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ABOUT  -  ROBOTIC FLEET  -  PROGRAM AREAS  -  EXPEDITIONS  -  GALLERY  -  DONATE  -  EVENTS  -  CONTACT US 
Marine Applied Research and Exploration
1230 Brickyard Cove Road #101, Point Richmond, CA 94801
Tel: 510.232.1541
info@maregroup.org
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  • Home
  • About
    • Navigating 2020
    • Our Team
    • Jobs
    • Board of Directors
    • Partners
    • Annual Reports
    • Project Reports
    • MARE in the News
    • Data Analysis
  • Services
  • Expeditions
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
  • Program Areas
    • Marine Protected Areas
    • National Marine Sanctuaries
    • Deep-sea Corals and Sponges
    • Fisheries
    • Other Services
    • Hawaii 30 x 30
    • Deep Sea Engineering Challenge
  • Robotic Fleet
    • ROV Beagle
    • ROV Hammerhead
    • BATFish
    • Video Lander
  • Gallery
    • Photo
    • Video
  • Donate
  • Contact Us