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SEADESC
The Southeastern United States Deep Sea Corals (SEADESC) Initiative was a collaborative effort to take a subset of information across a variety of OE-funded cruises in the South Atlantic Bight using the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute's Johnson Sea-Link submersible between 2002 and 2005 to characterize areas of habitat-forming, deep-sea corals in the South Atlantic Bight.
The Southeastern United States Deep-Sea Corals (SEADESC) initiative began in 2004 to provide a means of rapidly delivering general, small-scale habitat composition data from deep-sea (>200 m) habitats in the region. The scientific community needed a means of sharing data from ongoing studies without jeopardizing future publication capabilities, while management and education groups needed information more rapidly than normally provided through the scientific publication process.
The intent of this project was to provide basic habitat and other information (e.g., project metadata, bottom photographs, dominant biota) to a variety of users in a timely fashion. The initial focus of SEADESC was on deep-sea coral habitats, and because the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration (NOAA-OE) helped begin this effort and had funded several research missions related to deep coral habitats, deep coral projects funded by NOAA-OE were prioritized. Also, because of a strong interest in the project by the regional NOAA Undersea Research Center (NURC at UNC-Wilmington), a small test data set from shallower (<200 m) Florida Oculina surveys was included.
A SEADESC steering committee representing a variety of interests and skills was formed to determine content, evaluate protocols, and generally guide the project. Subsequently, a core working group was established to accomplish data analyses and carry the project to the current stage.
Click here to read the SEADESC Technical Memorandum (.pdf, 4.7 MB)
