BP ROV watching and some hope for the Gulf

A little earlier I was watching the cameras on on of the ROVs as they were bringing it to the surface. I started watching when it was at about 1500 feet depth. As it rose, the camera was on some cables. I have no idea how big those cables are so I do not have any scale for what I started seeing at about 750 feet - fish!

The resolution was terrible, so I couldn't identify species, but there was enough variation in size, body shape and activity I am pretty sure I saw at least four or five different kinds of fish. Every so often there was some sort of clamp holding the three cables together - at each of those there were one or two dozen fish. Others were swimming up and down the cables, larger ones would cruise by. At one point the camera pointed down at the ROV body below and there was a speckled fish nibbling at the housing of the ROV.

Then I watched a ROV camera on the sea floor - it was even worse resolution with absolutely no features to give scale - and I think I saw some fish there. There were bright shapes that seemed to move purposely, not methane ice crystals melting away.

I have not watched the ROVs very often coming to the surface, but at month and a half ago when I did, I saw nothing alive. About a week after they got the cap on the well, as a ROV got to the surface, I saw a few fish, but they were swimming with their mouths to the surface as if they were trying to get more air. I've seen fish in poorly oxygenated aquariums swim like that so I suspect the same reason.

As I watched I thought of something I would like BP to fund. They should fund a survey of Gulf biodiversity and general health of the Gulf. Even if there is no pre-gusher survey to compare to, a survey that starts now and goes for a specific period of some years would give a good idea of what the conditions are now and how they change (and hopefully improve) over the time of the study.

As part of the project, BP should continue undersea camera internet access so there could be no chance of hiding anything. If large numbers of marine mammals have been killed by this disaster, those carcasses are out there somewhere. Maybe they can be found and watched. Recent discoveries have been made of long term undersea communities centered around whale carcasses so it would be informative to see if those can thrive on poisoned carcasses as well as they do on normal deaths.

Places such as Africam attract a lot of viewers. I would bet that a project watching the Gulf would also be popular on the internet.

As for the ROVs, I think they are tethered to a ship and lowered in a cage. Who ever thought we'd be able to see a mile under the surface of the sea...technology is amazing. I'd like to see them keep monitoring too, to watch the GoM come back.

And they would not really need a ROV - just drop a cable with cameras at different levels along it and trail it under the ship. That should not be all that expensive, but would give lots of information.

Of course, if they wanted to have a ship with ROVs to send down to do more detailed inspections of areas of interest, that would be good. Bob Ballard has proven how much even one observation in the right place can discover about sea life. Think of what could be found with a real overall survey of an entire ocean basin over a period of time and follow up detailed studies of the most interesting spots!