Day 2

Will Jaeckle and Craig Brauer

Today was magnificent! Craig Brauer and I completed a wonderful dive to about 700 meters within view of the Atlantis Hotel on New Providence Island. We collected five different species of sea urchins and a species of stalked crinoid (this latter animal is largely restricted to the deep-sea) and saw swimming sea cucumbers and brittle stars. There were actual “herds” of Archaeopneustes hystrix and Palaeopneustes tholoformis from which we collected specimens for our studies of the reproductive biology of deep-sea invertebrate animals. To offer a sense of the environmental differences between the surface and our working depth, the sea temperature was 25 °C at the surface and 11 °C at depth, we lost light at 700 meters, but I could tell up from down at 500 m and I could see the surface of the sea at a depth of 60 m. On our trip back to the surface all lights were extinguished and Craig and I were treated to a fantastic display of bioluminescence. We spent 3.5 hours simply enjoying our view of and work with life at this depth. When we arrived back to the R/V Seward Johnson, we had a quick lunch break, listened to Paul Tyler (National Oceanography Center, England) lecture on the physical characteristics of the deep-sea, and then, while the second sub dive was returning to the depths at a different site, we began the “spawn fest.” Craig and I collected 37 Cidaris blakei during our dive and, through the magic of a potassium chloride solution about half of these animals were induced to release their gametes….. and we succeeded in obtaining fertilized eggs! Alas, our attempts to induce Archaeopneustes hystrix and Clypeaster rosaseus (a shallow-water species collected by Richard Emlet, U. Oregon during our dive) were not successful. Tomorrow begins and ends with a sub dive and we will complete our first sampling of the animals that live in the sea from depths of 1,000 m to the surface (a mere 6 hours of sorting). We offer for the following images from this, our first full day of work.

	The 200-foot Research Vessel Seward Johnson
	Launching the Johnson Sea Link Submersible
	One of the sea urchins (Archaeopneustes histrix) we collected today
	Craig Brauer with the sea urchin (Palaeopneustes tholoformis) that will be used (hopefully) during this project
	Stalked crinoids collected at about 600 m: a rare find!
	Spawning of the sea urchin Cidaris blakei requires many hands – from left to right Dr. Paul Tyler, Craig Brauer, Nadia Suarez-Bosche, Dr. Craig Young, Annie Pollard, and Dr. Richard Emlet