August 12, 2012 — The following was released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
NOAA researchers are getting a comprehensive view of the ocean floor using a new instrument, and have confirmed that there are high numbers of young sea scallops off of Delaware Bay.
Unofficially dubbed the "Seahorse" because of its curved and spiny profile, the instrument is the latest and most sophisticated version of a survey system developed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and used on sea scallop resource surveys conducted by NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC). This is the first year that the sea scallop survey has used both a dredge and the Seahorse's multisensory, integrated, benthic ecosystem sampling capability concurrently.
"The Seahorse results from nearly a decade of commitment to research and development by the fishing industry, our academic partners, NMFS, and other specialists working toward a mutual goal using a variety of funding sources," said Bill Karp, science and research director at the NEFSC. "Joint efforts like this take advantage of each party's strengths. We get good results, and I intend to continue engaging fishermen, academia, and other experts to help us make progress on a range of scientific and technical issues important to better managing our fisheries."
The Seahorse is equipped with stereo cameras and strobes (to take color images), a CTD (to measure conductivity, temperature and depth), fluorometer (to measure chlorophyll), spectrometer (to measure water color and trace chemicals in the water), dissolved oxygen sensors, and a high resolution side scan imaging system, among other instruments.
"We are excited about this new system because it gives us a way to make a significant leap forward in understanding scallop biology, ecosystem effects, and how well resource management is working," said Deborah Hart, a mathematical biologist at the NEFSC's Woods Hole Laboratory who also leads the agency's sea scallop stock assessment effort.
Towed behind a ship at around six knots (about 7 miles per hour) and flying about two meters (roughly six feet) above the sea floor, the Seahorse provides a view of the ocean floor more detailed than any obtained to date by the NEFSC's resource surveys. Initially the Seahorse is only being used for surveying sea scallop abundance and distribution, but investigations of other species, benthic habitat, and ecosystems studies are among other potential uses of the technology.
"The applications of this integrated technology are nearly limitless," said Scott Gallager, a WHOI scientist and co-developer of the Seahorse. "By integrating optical imaging with very high spatial resolution with side scan acoustics imaging, we can greatly expand our knowledge of seafloor characteristics and biological community structure."
This year's NEFSC sea scallop survey of the Mid-Atlantic area and Georges Bank was conducted aboard the 146-foot Research Vessel Hugh R. Sharp, operated by the University of Delaware, and used for the annual NEFSC surveys since 2008. The survey left June 1 on the first of three legs and started off of the Delmarva Peninsula. It then worked its way north off of New Jersey and Long Island and finished up on Georges Bank, east of Cape Cod. The third and final leg returned to NEFSC's Woods Hole Laboratory July 7.