This is an exterior shot of the submersible that collected and photographed the Phakellia sp. sponge from 170 m depth off Florida in the Friday deep-sea picture above. The video was lifted from the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration webpage for the Johnson Sea-link submersible. Go there to learn more.
More like this
Go sign this petition to maintain the tools for sea exploration at Florida Atlantic University. They're trying to get a thousand signatures…we can do that in no time at all.
It appears that Lockheed Martin will be building the replacement for the Alvin submersible, which I am now officially calling A2. The price for A2? WHOI awarded the contract for a reasonable $2.8 million.
Although the earliest interest and sampling in the deep sea occurred in the late 1800's, a majority of deep-sea exploration did not occur until after the 1960's. The current amount of sampling and exploration of this great environment is without precedent.