Just 100 meters (328 feet) offshore from MBARI’s facilities in Moss Landing, CA, lies the head of Monterey Canyon, a submarine geologic feature that rivals the Grand Canyon in size and grandeur. The main channel of Monterey Canyon meanders for over 470 kilometers (292 miles) and is roughly 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) wide at its widest point. Reaching a maximum depth of 1,700 meters (5,580 feet) before eventually ending at the abyssal plain, Monterey Canyon is one of the deepest submarine canyons on the west coast of the United States.
This animation uses data collected over the past 22 years by MBARI’s mapping team to bring Monterey Canyon to life in an unprecedented level of detail. The highest-resolution animation of Monterey Canyon ever created, it uses a combination of ship-based multibeam data at 25 meters (82 feet) in resolution and autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) multibeam mapping data at one meter (three feet) in resolution. MBARI scientists worked together with Frame 48, a Los Angeles-based film production company, to make these data come to life and give people a chance to see an amazing geologic feature that is otherwise invisible beneath the waves.
MBARI research has revealed that the canyon is astonishingly dynamic. Repeated mapping in certain areas of the canyon has shown that the terrain changes substantially every few months. Periodically, the build-up of sediment in the canyon head can lead to submarine landslides or turbidity currents that are similar to avalanches on land. Rather than a river of water cutting into the rocks, the resulting river of sand from these flows carve out the main channel of Monterey Canyon. This detailed data allows MBARI scientists to better understand how this incredible geologic feature impacts the myriad sea life-from bioluminescent fish to bone-eating worms to microscopic plankton-that call the canyon home. But it also allows us to understand potential risks that these geologic features pose to humans, including tsunamis that affect communities on the coast and damage to critical telecommunications infrastructure.
Studying Monterey Canyon is also critical to better understanding our climate system. As organic material on the surface decays and sinks, the canyon acts like a carbon highway, transporting those nutrients to biological communities on the deep seafloor. Monterey Canyon plays an important role in moving organic carbon from the coast to the sediments on the abyssal plain where it can be trapped for thousands or even millions of years. Researchers in locations with broad continental shelves, like the east coast of the US, oftentimes steam for 10 hours or more to reach deep-ocean sites. MBARI is incredibly fortunate to have the Monterey Canyon for a backyard as it provides unprecedented access to the deep. In just a little over two and a half hours, MBARI’s Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs), the Doc Ricketts and Ventana, can explore ocean depths of more than a mile discovering and studying the myriad and often bizarre-looking creatures of the deep sea.
Less than ten percent of the seafloor has been mapped at the same level of detail as the entire dry surfaces of the Moon and Mars. MBARI’s mapping technology and datasets bring us closer to creating a clear picture of the uncharted frontier beneath the ocean’s surface.
Learn more about Monterey Canyon: www.mbari.org/...
Credits:
Senior Producers: Heidi Cullen, Nancy Jacobsen Stout, Kyra Schlining, Susan von Thun (MBARI video team)
Animation created by: Frame 48 frame48.com/
Special thanks to Charlie Paull, Dave Caress, Eve Lundsten, and Jenny Paduan for their thoughtful guidance and for providing the data used to build this animation.
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13 окт 2024
