Below you will find a collection of fact sheets, content essays, and stories from our explorers on board mesophotic corals expeditions featured on the OceanExplorer.NOAA.gov website.
From the Coral Ecosystem Connectivity 2014: From Pulley Ridge to the Florida Keys expedition. This essay discusses how coral reefs may be connected to one another. Does coral larvae stay close to home, move to a nearby neighborhood, or perhaps even travel hundreds of miles before settling in a new reef location?
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From the Coral Ecosystem Connectivity 2014: From Pulley Ridge to the Florida Keys expedition. This essay discusses how ocean currents around South Florida drive important physical connectivity between the coral reefs of Pulley Ridge, the Dry Tortugas, and the Florida Keys.
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From the Coral Ecosystem Connectivity 2013: From Pulley Ridge to the Florida Keys expedition. This essay introduces reasons why the proximity of Pulley Ridge to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, combined with the influence of the Loop Current, has led scientists to question whether Pulley Ridge could serve as an upstream source of invertebrate and fish larvae for the sanctuary.
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From the Coral Ecosystem Connectivity 2013: From Pulley Ridge to the Florida Keys expedition. The term "coral" conjures up visions of warm, tropical waters, or, as of late, the cold dark depths of the ocean where not a ray of sunlight penetrates. Found between these two visions is a relatively unknown and poorly understood depth realm referred to as the mesophotic zone — "meso" for middle and "photic" for light.
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From the Coral Ecosystem Connectivity 2013: From Pulley Ridge to the Florida Keys expedition. This essay discusses the Pulley Ridge ecosystem, which is the deepest known photosynthetic coral reef off the continental United States. It also describes the benthic and fish communities of this special region.
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From the Pacific Deep Reefs 2011 expedition. This mission summary of an expedition to the deep reefs of the Pacific discusses how these communities are less impacted by stressors than their shallow-water counterparts and may represent important “seed-banks” for potential reef recovery.
Read moreThe above items are only a selection of the educational materials highlighting mesophotic coral ecosystems on our website.
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