WEBVTT
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Good evening everyone.
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We're pleased to have you join us
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for our annual Seaside Chats Speaker Series
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about ocean topics associated with
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Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary
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and the Gulf of Mexico.
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We're also part of the National Marine Sanctuary
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Webinar Series and the NOAA Science Seminar Series.
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During the presentation,
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all attendees will be in listen-only mode.
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You're welcome to type questions for the presenter
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into the questions box at the bottom of the control panel
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on the right-hand side of your screen.
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You may also let us know about
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any technical issues you are having,
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we'll be monitoring incoming questions and technical issues,
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and we'll respond to them as soon as we can.
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In addition,
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we encourage you to close all other programs
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you may have open on your computer
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or any non-webinar tabs on your internet browser.
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The reason for this is our speaker
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will be sharing several video clips this evening,
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and they are based on old, high eight video
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from many years ago and they may have some difficulty
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coming across the internet.
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So the more you can close down
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before we get to those parts of the presentation,
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the better chance of better quality for those videos.
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We are also recording this session
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and we'll post the recording
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to the National Marine Sanctuaries
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and Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary websites.
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We'll notify registered participants via email
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when these recordings are available.
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And for those of you who are interested,
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we have a document of links to additional resources
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on today's topic in the Handout pane of the control panel,
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simply click on this item to download it.
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Hello everyone, my name is Kelly Drinnen
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and I'm the Education/Outreach Specialist
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for Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
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I'll be facilitating today's webinar from Dickinson, Texas.
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Also with me today is Kelly O'Connell,
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another staff member who will be helping me
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with the backend administration of this webinar.
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In 1972, the United States ushered in
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a new era of ocean conservation
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by creating the National Marine Sanctuary System.
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Since then, we've grown into a nationwide network
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of 15 national marine sanctuaries
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and two marine national monuments,
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that in total conserve more than 620,000 square miles
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of spectacular ocean and Great Lakes waters.
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That's an area nearly the size of Alaska.
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And these marine protected areas are like national parks,
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they're just simply underwater.
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The National Marine Sanctuaries Act
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gives NOAA the authority to designate special areas
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of the marine environment as National Marine Sanctuaries.
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It also mandates that the
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Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
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conduct research, monitoring, resource protection,
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education, outreach, and management
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of America's underwater treasures
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to preserve them for future generations.
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In addition to being places for recreation and research,
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national marine sanctuaries are also living classrooms.
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This is where people can see, touch, and learn
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about the nation's great lakes and ocean treasures.
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This webinar series is just one part
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of that national education and outreach effort.
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The Seaside Chats series is hosted
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by Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary,
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the only marine sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico.
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This sanctuary consists of 17 banks,
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or small underwater mountains, that are home
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to some of the healthiest coral reefs in the world,
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amazing algal sponge communities,
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and deep reef habitats
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featuring an abundance of black coral and gorgonians.
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We invite you to learn more about us
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by visiting the sanctuary website at flowergarden.noaa.gov.
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Today's presentation focuses on exploration
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in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico
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before the Flower Garden Banks ever became a sanctuary.
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For three decades between 1960 and 1990,
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researchers explored the reefs and fishing banks
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off Texas and Louisiana using scuba tanks and submarines.
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They even contemplated installing an underwater habitat
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that would allow them to live and work underwater
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for extended periods of time.
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All this was done largely to satisfy their curiosity,
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but also to protect and conserve.
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And then, in 1992, we established a sanctuary.
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Join us for a trek down memory lane with Tom Bright,
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the person of interest in this photograph,
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and the person considered to be the Father
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of Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.
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Dr. Thomas J. Bright retired in 1994
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from his position as professor of oceanography
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with Texas A&M University,
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where, as a biological oceanographer,
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he specialized in coral reef ecology.
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He has performed reef studies in Florida, The Bahamas,
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Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Arabian Gulf,
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and has visited Red Sea and Pacific Reefs.
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During his 25 year tenure at Texas A&M,
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Dr. Bright supervised the research
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of more than 20 graduate students
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and produced over 50 scientific papers,
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25 research project reports,
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and 15 professional meeting abstracts.
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In 1974, he edited a book
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on the biota of the Flower Garden Bank Reefs
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in the Northwestern Gulf of Mexico
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and is co-author of a 1985 book
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describing the biology, geology, and hydrography
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of regional hard banks and coral reefs.
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In addition to qualitative survey methods,
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he utilized quantitative non-destructive sampling techniques
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involving underwater photography,
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high resolution underwater video,
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direct counts and measurements, and passive acoustics
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to assess coral populations, growth rates, reproduction,
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recruitment, diseases, mortality, and recovery.
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Laboratory analyses were accomplished
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by computer imagery of photographic and video data
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and appropriate statistical applications.
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In pursuit of these efforts,
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he has employed scientific diving techniques,
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participated in three missions
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in manned underwater habitats,
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and been an observer or pilot
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on several research submarines.
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Dr. Bright was a certified research
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submersible pilot for the Diaphus
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and holds certificates of training and participation
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in the NOAA aquanaut program, including rebreather training.
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In the 1950s, he served as an engine man
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on the US Navy submarine Trumpetfish based at Key West,
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which is where he first dove on coral reefs.
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After retirement from Texas A&M,
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he and his wife, Cindy,
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sailed to the Western Caribbean in their ketch, Tempest,
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and for a time, managed a marine research station
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for the Wildlife Conservation Society
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at Glover's Reef, Belize.
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Welcome, Tom.
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Well, hi.
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So what else is there to say? I think you've given it all.
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(Kelly laughs)
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All right-
(Tom speaks indistinctly)
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Lemme hand over control.
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Hang on. Show my screen.
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Yes.
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All right, okay. (Tom laughs)
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Here we are.
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We're not seeing the right screen yet.
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We're seeing your desktop.
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Okay, all right.
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Lemme try that.
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How's that?
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Nope, still seeing your desktop.
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Hmm.
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Um, webcam.
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I see you now.
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Yeah?
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Yep.
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But we're not seeing your show, your program.
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Try restarting,
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try restarting your PowerPoint.
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All right, hang on.
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You don't see anything there, huh?
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Nope.
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You can see it on my computer,
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but we're not seeing it on your computer.
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Okay, go up to the sharing bar on the control panel
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and where it says Show Screen,
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there's a little drop down there.
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Maybe you just need to choose
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which screen you're showing us?
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Main screen, screen two.
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Yeah, pick which one it has...
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Can you tell which one your presentation's on?
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It should light up the one that...
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When you hover over it,
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it should light up which screen you wanna show.
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Main screen?
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My screen?
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Main screen.
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Well-
Nope.
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Beats me.
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All right,
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try closing your PowerPoint and then reopening it.
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All right.
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These things happen.
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Yeah, they do.
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We were fully prepared and then...
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Oh wait, everybody else is telling me,
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other people are telling me they saw your screen.
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Okay, hold on.
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Hmm.
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Cynthia Palmer, could you let me know,
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do you still see his screen?
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It should be, say, "Exploring A Future Sanctuary."
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They're seeing your mountains.
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You're seeing screensaver.
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Geez.
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All right.
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Screen two.
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Is your PowerPoint open again?
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I haven't got around to closing it again.
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Oh, okay.
So hang on.
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All right, I'm gonna...
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Hold on, I'm gonna take control back for a moment
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and then I'm gonna pass it back to you
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and see if that works.
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Sometimes it just takes a little switching around.
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Did you get the popup that says Show My Screen?
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(indistinct) screen.
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Okay.
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All right, now we just need you to
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put it into Slideshow Mode.
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All right, perfect.
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You're set.
How about that?
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Well, amazing. (laughs)
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You know, when I retired, I did not have internet,
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nor did I have a cell phone.
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And then I sailed away and it took us a while to catch up.
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So, this is not surprising. (Kelly laughs)
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Anyway, all right, let's get going.
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You're seeing my little introductory thing here.
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Now, what I think I need to do
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is to tell you about the two projects
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that we got started with at the Flower Gardens.
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And we weren't the first ones.
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All right, there we go.
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These pictures are from a 1963 publication
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by Dr. Thomas Pulley of the Houston Natural History Museum.
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And I think they're the first pictures
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that were published from the Flower Gardens.
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And these came out in a publication
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that he did called Texas to the Tropics.
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And he made trips out to the Flower Gardens
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throughout the 1960s with sport divers
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and made collections for his museum and so on.
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And I think you can probably still see 'em at the museum.
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Any rate, he was the first one to actually confirm
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that there were viable tropical Atlantic coral reefs
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at the Flower Gardens.
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Okay, I'm finally figuring out how this thing works.
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Now, the next step was in 1971,
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a fellow graduate student of mine.
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Well, by that time I had my PhD
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and he was still a graduate student, Serpel Edwards,
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under the direction of Dr. Richard Rezak, Dick Rezak,
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who later became my partner in one of these big studies,
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produced a dissertation called
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Geology of the West Flower Garden Bank.
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He described the geological facies, the structure,
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the basic carbonate biology, corals,
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and calcium carbonate producing organisms
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like calcareous algae.
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And he and I were friends
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and I think he's the one that got me interested
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in the Flower Gardens to begin with.
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So we got interested in the Flower Gardens and...
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Okay, this is one of those videos.
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This is one of the first trips
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00:13:36.900 --> 00:13:40.023
we ever made out there as a bunch of biologists.
272
00:13:41.447 --> 00:13:45.810
In 1970 we made a trip out to the Flower Gardens
273
00:13:45.810 --> 00:13:49.923
on the research vessel Orca operated by Texas A&M.
274
00:13:51.930 --> 00:13:55.535
And we had these scooters that were really neat,
275
00:13:55.535 --> 00:13:57.895
you just zip around the reef,
276
00:13:57.895 --> 00:14:00.812
check things out, it was quite fun.
277
00:14:03.495 --> 00:14:06.960
Manta rays were there, at the time, they were
278
00:14:06.960 --> 00:14:11.613
coming in there, I'm sure, for centuries, millennia.
279
00:14:14.106 --> 00:14:19.106
And the work we were doing then was interesting.
280
00:14:19.650 --> 00:14:23.310
John Irving with the engineering department
281
00:14:23.310 --> 00:14:26.760
had some racks that he put out to test corrosion
282
00:14:26.760 --> 00:14:30.120
and deterioration of various kinds of materials.
283
00:14:30.120 --> 00:14:33.540
This is Dr. Tom Bright, a young professor,
284
00:14:33.540 --> 00:14:37.980
He's trying to listen to fish underwater,
285
00:14:37.980 --> 00:14:39.735
not very successfully
286
00:14:39.735 --> 00:14:42.153
because of the noise of the ship and everything.
287
00:14:43.320 --> 00:14:45.420
Also dipped up a lot of sargassum.
288
00:14:45.420 --> 00:14:48.750
We were collecting organisms for a project
289
00:14:48.750 --> 00:14:51.660
that desired to analyze the tissues
290
00:14:51.660 --> 00:14:54.340
of some of these creatures
291
00:14:55.411 --> 00:14:57.813
for heavy metals and contaminants,
292
00:14:59.700 --> 00:15:01.140
pesticides and such.
293
00:15:01.140 --> 00:15:04.426
This was about the time the world was starting
294
00:15:04.426 --> 00:15:08.300
to recognize that we need to pay attention
295
00:15:08.300 --> 00:15:09.763
to the environment.
296
00:15:10.830 --> 00:15:12.930
This a slipper lobster we captured,
297
00:15:12.930 --> 00:15:16.680
we were all so interested in finding out what was there.
298
00:15:16.680 --> 00:15:19.085
Another part of that study that related
299
00:15:19.085 --> 00:15:24.085
to the environmental concerns was Dan Taylor here,
300
00:15:24.270 --> 00:15:29.220
taking livers out of fish to analyze for heavy metals,
301
00:15:29.220 --> 00:15:30.753
particularly mercury.
302
00:15:31.694 --> 00:15:35.828
And he also speared a bunch of fish to do the same thing.
303
00:15:35.828 --> 00:15:38.313
And the only reason he was spearing them
304
00:15:38.313 --> 00:15:40.256
was to take them as samples.
305
00:15:43.380 --> 00:15:48.060
Okay, about that time I met up with these guys,
306
00:15:48.060 --> 00:15:51.870
Denny Bowman, in the beard, and Bob Alderdice,
307
00:15:51.870 --> 00:15:56.460
they're with University of Texas Marine Biomedical Institute
308
00:15:56.460 --> 00:15:57.753
down in Galveston.
309
00:15:59.610 --> 00:16:03.330
And they had this organization that Bob had started up
310
00:16:03.330 --> 00:16:07.667
called the Flower Garden Ocean Research Center, FGORC.
311
00:16:09.780 --> 00:16:12.258
And he had big plans for FGORC.
312
00:16:12.258 --> 00:16:14.700
They wanted to put a research platform
313
00:16:14.700 --> 00:16:16.950
right on top of the reef.
314
00:16:16.950 --> 00:16:20.910
And he envisioned using ships and submersibles
315
00:16:20.910 --> 00:16:25.140
and ROVs, remotely operated vehicles,
316
00:16:25.140 --> 00:16:30.140
and particularly desired to put a manned underwater habitat
317
00:16:31.380 --> 00:16:36.372
down so researchers could research the reef,
318
00:16:36.372 --> 00:16:39.213
diving on some of the deeper parts.
319
00:16:42.180 --> 00:16:45.330
And it turns out that his project
320
00:16:45.330 --> 00:16:49.620
got sort of nicknamed the Texas Tektite.
321
00:16:49.620 --> 00:16:52.659
And Texas Tektite because the habitat
322
00:16:52.659 --> 00:16:55.680
that he wanted to put down at the Flower Gardens
323
00:16:55.680 --> 00:17:00.360
was the Tektite II underwater manned habitat,
324
00:17:00.360 --> 00:17:04.710
which was at that time in the US Virgin Islands
325
00:17:04.710 --> 00:17:07.120
sponsored by NOAA and NASA
326
00:17:10.834 --> 00:17:14.280
and hosting missions by researchers
327
00:17:14.280 --> 00:17:16.779
who came in and got trained
328
00:17:16.779 --> 00:17:20.223
and went out to research, do their research on the reefs.
329
00:17:21.510 --> 00:17:25.920
And so they were tuned into underwater habitats.
330
00:17:25.920 --> 00:17:28.980
And coincidentally,
331
00:17:28.980 --> 00:17:32.580
Bill Schroeder, one of the graduate students, and I
332
00:17:32.580 --> 00:17:37.580
had landed a 1970 project in the Tektite habitat.
333
00:17:39.750 --> 00:17:43.821
And so we went down to the Virgin Islands
334
00:17:43.821 --> 00:17:48.300
and we were studying fish sounds underwater.
335
00:17:48.300 --> 00:17:50.730
And here's a video that,
336
00:17:50.730 --> 00:17:54.660
well, it was a movie we took and I turned it into a video
337
00:17:54.660 --> 00:17:58.503
sort of describing what the system was and how it worked.
338
00:18:02.920 --> 00:18:06.330
NOAA Scientists in the Sea Program,
339
00:18:06.330 --> 00:18:08.700
Tektite II in the US Virgin Islands
340
00:18:08.700 --> 00:18:11.850
sponsored by NOAA and NASA.
341
00:18:11.850 --> 00:18:13.260
Tom Bright and Bill Schroeder
342
00:18:13.260 --> 00:18:17.010
had a mission to study fish sounds.
343
00:18:17.010 --> 00:18:20.730
Job side support includes decompression chambers
344
00:18:20.730 --> 00:18:23.370
and diving bells.
345
00:18:23.370 --> 00:18:26.850
We took rebreather training using silent rebreathers
346
00:18:26.850 --> 00:18:29.220
because we were studying sounds.
347
00:18:29.220 --> 00:18:32.400
This is the Tektite from the top
348
00:18:32.400 --> 00:18:34.590
and then you swim in the bottom.
349
00:18:34.590 --> 00:18:39.393
We get supplied from the surface by pressure cooker.
350
00:18:43.410 --> 00:18:45.710
Bill Schroeder was the cook,
351
00:18:45.710 --> 00:18:48.210
he put stuff in and warmed it up,
352
00:18:48.210 --> 00:18:50.352
things got really hot down there.
353
00:18:52.609 --> 00:18:55.026
comfortable
354
00:18:56.070 --> 00:18:57.780
Chuck kept us alive,
355
00:18:57.780 --> 00:19:01.580
he's putting baralyme into the scrubber.
356
00:19:01.580 --> 00:19:06.580
Baralyme absorbs CO2 and that takes it outta the air,
357
00:19:08.370 --> 00:19:12.573
and at the same time, oxygen is bled in as we breath it out.
358
00:19:13.650 --> 00:19:16.530
And the rebreather works about the same way,
359
00:19:16.530 --> 00:19:18.900
but at a smaller scale.
360
00:19:18.900 --> 00:19:21.600
Rebreathers are quiet, they don't put out any bubbles.
361
00:19:22.620 --> 00:19:26.580
Reefs are noisy so we put hydrophones
362
00:19:26.580 --> 00:19:29.670
in cracks and crevices where the fish were
363
00:19:29.670 --> 00:19:31.162
and recorded them.
364
00:19:32.520 --> 00:19:36.120
Note the sign, "In case of fire, break glass."
365
00:19:38.580 --> 00:19:41.747
(fish swishing water)
366
00:19:54.450 --> 00:19:56.777
Well, after that, FGORC,
367
00:19:58.050 --> 00:20:03.050
Bob Alderdice, gave me 5,000 bucks
368
00:20:03.090 --> 00:20:06.360
to recruit a bunch of graduate students
369
00:20:06.360 --> 00:20:08.819
to go out with 'im and try to figure out
370
00:20:08.819 --> 00:20:11.155
what organisms occupied the reef
371
00:20:11.155 --> 00:20:13.298
and how they were distributed in it.
372
00:20:13.298 --> 00:20:15.273
And this is the group, fine group.
373
00:20:17.190 --> 00:20:21.730
They all went on to careers in various different pursuits
374
00:20:22.950 --> 00:20:27.950
in academia, government, and even the oil industry.
375
00:20:29.760 --> 00:20:34.760
But we used this vessel, the Miss Freeport, mostly.
376
00:20:37.110 --> 00:20:39.300
Bob rented the Miss Freeport.
377
00:20:39.300 --> 00:20:41.370
But we used several different kinds of vessels,
378
00:20:41.370 --> 00:20:44.703
including the Orca that A&M operated.
379
00:20:45.930 --> 00:20:49.833
Went to sea with decompression chambers,
380
00:20:51.780 --> 00:20:56.780
compressors, scuba tanks, zodiacs, and so on.
381
00:20:58.080 --> 00:21:01.350
This is Ken Yoakum and Bob Alderdice's secretary
382
00:21:01.350 --> 00:21:05.013
trying to talk over a running compressor.
383
00:21:06.270 --> 00:21:11.270
We also had opportunity to use the Nekton Gamma submersible
384
00:21:12.990 --> 00:21:15.543
to track across the reef and bank,
385
00:21:16.650 --> 00:21:18.300
but for the most part,
386
00:21:18.300 --> 00:21:21.903
the work was done by graduate students in scuba gear.
387
00:21:24.660 --> 00:21:29.640
We made about 17 cruises with FGORC
388
00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:35.480
and we did all sorts of observations, primarily sampling,
389
00:21:37.050 --> 00:21:41.010
but also the photographic measurements and so on.
390
00:21:41.010 --> 00:21:43.980
And got our systems started.
391
00:21:43.980 --> 00:21:46.527
Finally, we published the results in a book
392
00:21:46.527 --> 00:21:49.228
called Biota of the West Flower Garden Bank,
393
00:21:50.430 --> 00:21:54.180
which had about 360 species of creatures
394
00:21:54.180 --> 00:21:56.280
that we discovered and described.
395
00:21:56.280 --> 00:22:00.190
And it also included a description of the zonation
396
00:22:01.467 --> 00:22:03.813
and the community structure and so on.
397
00:22:04.650 --> 00:22:07.233
So that was pretty much the end of that study,
398
00:22:09.510 --> 00:22:12.933
but it wasn't the end of the studies that we did.
399
00:22:13.860 --> 00:22:15.810
There are, as I said,
400
00:22:15.810 --> 00:22:18.730
about 31 of these fishing banks
401
00:22:19.722 --> 00:22:23.190
on the outer continental shelf of the Gulf of Mexico.
402
00:22:23.190 --> 00:22:25.860
And half of them are, or more than half of 'em
403
00:22:25.860 --> 00:22:27.750
are now included in the sanctuary.
404
00:22:27.750 --> 00:22:31.080
But up until just a couple of years ago,
405
00:22:31.080 --> 00:22:33.420
there were only two or three banks in the sanctuary,
406
00:22:33.420 --> 00:22:35.523
but it expanded.
407
00:22:36.450 --> 00:22:39.840
But most of these banks,
408
00:22:39.840 --> 00:22:44.840
particularly the ones off of Northern Texas and Louisiana,
409
00:22:45.720 --> 00:22:48.750
are associated with salt domes.
410
00:22:48.750 --> 00:22:52.440
And salt domes are frequently associated
411
00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:56.373
with stratographic traps for oil and gas.
412
00:22:57.270 --> 00:23:00.390
So the petroleum industry was quite interested.
413
00:23:00.390 --> 00:23:04.413
And if you know anything about the northwestern Gulf,
414
00:23:05.340 --> 00:23:08.580
it has a higher concentration
415
00:23:08.580 --> 00:23:10.410
of offshore production platforms
416
00:23:10.410 --> 00:23:12.843
than anywhere else on the planet.
417
00:23:16.260 --> 00:23:19.323
But the continental shelf is,
418
00:23:20.940 --> 00:23:23.673
I guess, property of the United States government.
419
00:23:24.660 --> 00:23:28.650
And the US Bureau of Land Management,
420
00:23:28.650 --> 00:23:32.250
Outer Continental Shelf Office in New Orleans, at that time,
421
00:23:32.250 --> 00:23:34.420
had responsibility for managing
422
00:23:35.550 --> 00:23:38.340
the resources on the continental shelf.
423
00:23:38.340 --> 00:23:41.133
And of course the petroleum is a resource.
424
00:23:42.480 --> 00:23:44.010
So they divided the shelf up
425
00:23:44.010 --> 00:23:48.210
into a several hundred lease blocks
426
00:23:48.210 --> 00:23:52.650
that were to be leased to the oil and gas industry
427
00:23:52.650 --> 00:23:54.033
for development.
428
00:23:56.070 --> 00:24:00.630
All of the 31 banks that I just described earlier
429
00:24:00.630 --> 00:24:04.653
were in these lease blocks, one way or another.
430
00:24:07.140 --> 00:24:11.633
So the other thing that they were responsible for
431
00:24:12.750 --> 00:24:16.350
was considering the impact of offshore development
432
00:24:16.350 --> 00:24:21.063
on sensitive biotic communities or other resources.
433
00:24:22.050 --> 00:24:27.050
And so what the Outer Continental Shelf Office did
434
00:24:28.410 --> 00:24:30.820
was issue a request for proposals
435
00:24:31.980 --> 00:24:35.760
to study all of these fishing banks,
436
00:24:35.760 --> 00:24:39.210
their structure, their geology, their hydrography,
437
00:24:39.210 --> 00:24:41.253
and their biology, importantly.
438
00:24:42.690 --> 00:24:46.083
And it was gonna be a pretty big contract.
439
00:24:47.340 --> 00:24:50.283
And of course, FGORC, that I described earlier,
440
00:24:51.377 --> 00:24:54.418
was sort of in the catbird seat to get the contract
441
00:24:54.418 --> 00:24:58.293
because they'd been on it with us.
442
00:25:00.060 --> 00:25:04.920
And they went for it, but before the contract was awarded,
443
00:25:04.920 --> 00:25:09.153
something went haywire in the Marine Biomedical Institute,
444
00:25:10.110 --> 00:25:14.253
some kind of disagreement, I actually don't know what,
445
00:25:15.630 --> 00:25:17.823
but Bob Alderdice resigned.
446
00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:22.593
And when he resigned, FGORC dissolved.
447
00:25:24.420 --> 00:25:27.240
So, FGORC did not get the contract,
448
00:25:27.240 --> 00:25:32.240
nor did they ever proceed to build a research platform
449
00:25:32.670 --> 00:25:37.023
on the reefs or anything else they had aspired to do.
450
00:25:38.250 --> 00:25:40.560
But with them out of the picture,
451
00:25:40.560 --> 00:25:43.980
Texas A&M Oceanography department and our group
452
00:25:43.980 --> 00:25:48.980
was sort of left as an alternative and we got the contract.
453
00:25:50.490 --> 00:25:54.180
And I was the initial principal investigator,
454
00:25:54.180 --> 00:25:58.830
but I'm not a geologist, I'm not a physical oceanographer.
455
00:25:58.830 --> 00:26:03.813
So, I went out and enlisted Dick Rezak,
456
00:26:04.800 --> 00:26:08.040
and we ultimately got Dave McGrail involved,
457
00:26:08.040 --> 00:26:12.093
Dick being a geologist and McGrail being the hydrographer.
458
00:26:13.950 --> 00:26:18.630
Well, this was around 1972, '73.
459
00:26:18.630 --> 00:26:22.743
And at the same time, coincidentally,
460
00:26:23.580 --> 00:26:26.528
the oceanography department had acquired
461
00:26:26.528 --> 00:26:29.225
a brand new research vessel called the Gyre,
462
00:26:29.225 --> 00:26:32.703
which you see up here in purple in the upper left.
463
00:26:33.750 --> 00:26:38.710
Also, they acquired a two-man research submersible
464
00:26:38.710 --> 00:26:40.067
called the Diaphus
465
00:26:42.090 --> 00:26:44.823
and we fit that into the contract very nicely.
466
00:26:46.500 --> 00:26:50.400
Our two-man research submersible, Diaphus,
467
00:26:50.400 --> 00:26:55.400
operated by the Texas A&M University Oceanography
468
00:26:55.406 --> 00:27:00.060
Department. It had a four foot wide acrylic dome in front
469
00:27:00.060 --> 00:27:03.090
we could take videos and pictures
470
00:27:03.090 --> 00:27:05.910
and make observations from.
471
00:27:05.910 --> 00:27:10.650
It could go to 1200 feet, but we never took it past 600.
472
00:27:10.650 --> 00:27:14.310
Pretty tight inside, room enough for two people,
473
00:27:14.310 --> 00:27:15.860
but not much more.
474
00:27:17.100 --> 00:27:18.965
Rather effective.
475
00:27:18.965 --> 00:27:23.250
It allowed us to study the reefs and banks
476
00:27:23.250 --> 00:27:26.373
in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico for about 10 years.
477
00:27:29.400 --> 00:27:31.110
And how we did that,
478
00:27:31.110 --> 00:27:34.230
we took the submarine down to the base of the bank,
479
00:27:34.230 --> 00:27:36.060
down here in the lower right.
480
00:27:36.060 --> 00:27:41.043
And then, we'd travel up the bank all the way to the crest,
481
00:27:41.043 --> 00:27:43.660
and on the way we'd be taking photographs
482
00:27:44.587 --> 00:27:47.700
and motion pictures and videos
483
00:27:47.700 --> 00:27:50.520
and making observations, taking notes,
484
00:27:50.520 --> 00:27:52.710
and recordings and such,
485
00:27:52.710 --> 00:27:56.580
all to be incorporated in the reports
486
00:27:56.580 --> 00:28:00.303
to the Outer Continental Shelf Office in New Orleans.
487
00:28:01.920 --> 00:28:06.150
Basically, what we saw, of course, at the Flower Gardens,
488
00:28:06.150 --> 00:28:10.440
which was the most complexly structured of all the banks,
489
00:28:10.440 --> 00:28:13.830
the high diversity coral reefs at the crest,
490
00:28:13.830 --> 00:28:17.493
from maybe 60 feet down to about 160.
491
00:28:18.692 --> 00:28:22.470
From 160 down toward the edge of the bank,
492
00:28:22.470 --> 00:28:27.363
there was a large platform covered with algal nodules,
493
00:28:28.800 --> 00:28:31.260
pictured over here, the middle picture,
494
00:28:31.260 --> 00:28:36.000
fish-sized nodules that are secreted by calcium carbonate
495
00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:40.383
producing red algae, coralline algae.
496
00:28:41.220 --> 00:28:44.010
And scattered among all those nodules
497
00:28:44.010 --> 00:28:46.800
were big populations of sponges
498
00:28:46.800 --> 00:28:51.780
and various other invertebrates and fish
499
00:28:51.780 --> 00:28:54.930
and even some corals from up above.
500
00:28:54.930 --> 00:28:57.852
So further down, around 225 feet,
501
00:28:57.852 --> 00:29:02.460
we started seeing populations of antipatharians,
502
00:29:02.460 --> 00:29:06.510
they're kind of feathery creatures
503
00:29:06.510 --> 00:29:08.100
that are attached to the bottom,
504
00:29:08.100 --> 00:29:11.040
they're related to black corals.
505
00:29:11.040 --> 00:29:13.500
This was our antipatharian zone.
506
00:29:13.500 --> 00:29:16.355
And going right on down to the base of the bank,
507
00:29:16.355 --> 00:29:19.560
the very base, we got into drowned reefs.
508
00:29:19.560 --> 00:29:22.200
The drowned reefs were kind of patch reefs
509
00:29:22.200 --> 00:29:27.000
and apparently viable coral
510
00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:30.213
or coralline algae reefs back in the days
511
00:29:31.050 --> 00:29:34.080
when the sea level was much lower
512
00:29:34.080 --> 00:29:36.630
and they were closer to the surface
513
00:29:36.630 --> 00:29:39.003
and the Flower Gardens were islands.
514
00:29:39.930 --> 00:29:44.930
So, we did these transects, several of 'em at all the banks,
515
00:29:46.530 --> 00:29:49.980
each bank we did several transects
516
00:29:49.980 --> 00:29:51.900
and we wrote it all up,
517
00:29:51.900 --> 00:29:55.350
we drew these block diagrams for each of the banks.
518
00:29:55.350 --> 00:30:00.350
And then, about after a decade or so doing this,
519
00:30:01.380 --> 00:30:03.570
we summarized it all in this book,
520
00:30:03.570 --> 00:30:07.653
Reefs and Banks of the Northwestern Gulf of Mexico.
521
00:30:08.670 --> 00:30:10.740
Dick Rezak did the geology,
522
00:30:10.740 --> 00:30:14.823
Dave McGrail did the hydrography, and I did the biology.
523
00:30:18.750 --> 00:30:23.400
But the basic information that BLM wanted
524
00:30:23.400 --> 00:30:26.520
was something that they could use
525
00:30:26.520 --> 00:30:31.520
to create protective stipulations in these leases
526
00:30:34.020 --> 00:30:37.015
that they were going to put up for sale
527
00:30:37.015 --> 00:30:39.843
to the oil and gas industry.
528
00:30:40.710 --> 00:30:44.460
And so, we came up with this environmental prioritization
529
00:30:44.460 --> 00:30:47.107
scheme based on the structure of the bank,
530
00:30:47.107 --> 00:30:50.435
the biotic communities and their distribution on the bank,
531
00:30:50.435 --> 00:30:52.816
the positions of the banks
532
00:30:52.816 --> 00:30:56.250
on the continental shelf and so on.
533
00:30:56.250 --> 00:31:00.510
Of course, the most sensitive were the reefs,
534
00:31:00.510 --> 00:31:03.480
the banks that bore the living coral reefs,
535
00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:08.480
and also the banks that bore the algal sponge zones.
536
00:31:08.490 --> 00:31:12.900
These were the basic reef building communities.
537
00:31:12.900 --> 00:31:17.430
And the other types of banks in different positions
538
00:31:17.430 --> 00:31:22.430
on the shelf exposed to different environmental conditions
539
00:31:23.190 --> 00:31:26.040
were ranked at a different priority.
540
00:31:26.040 --> 00:31:29.850
And the least sensitive that we considered
541
00:31:29.850 --> 00:31:34.710
were the ones way far south that were low relief
542
00:31:34.710 --> 00:31:38.610
and almost constantly exposed
543
00:31:38.610 --> 00:31:41.370
to turbid water and sedimentation,
544
00:31:41.370 --> 00:31:44.910
we considered them the least threatened
545
00:31:44.910 --> 00:31:46.800
by any such activity.
546
00:31:46.800 --> 00:31:48.871
But at any rate,
547
00:31:48.871 --> 00:31:53.871
the BLM used that information to generate some regulations
548
00:31:57.810 --> 00:32:00.990
and promulgated stipulations in these reefs.
549
00:32:00.990 --> 00:32:03.278
The most important of which, I think,
550
00:32:03.278 --> 00:32:06.300
were what were called the No Activity Zones.
551
00:32:06.300 --> 00:32:11.300
Basically, all the banks had a zone of no activity,
552
00:32:12.180 --> 00:32:14.943
which incorporated the bank itself.
553
00:32:15.840 --> 00:32:19.590
And no oil wells, no activities,
554
00:32:19.590 --> 00:32:24.240
no anchoring by the oil and gas industry,
555
00:32:24.240 --> 00:32:27.780
and nothing to do with fishing and other sport diving
556
00:32:27.780 --> 00:32:30.960
and all that stuff, just oil and gas.
557
00:32:30.960 --> 00:32:33.808
And they also created buffer zones,
558
00:32:33.808 --> 00:32:36.990
where they devised techniques
559
00:32:36.990 --> 00:32:40.087
that were considered to be protective of the banks
560
00:32:40.087 --> 00:32:42.570
and the communities on the banks.
561
00:32:42.570 --> 00:32:47.570
For instance, near the East Flower Garden,
562
00:32:47.670 --> 00:32:50.070
where ultimately a platform went in,
563
00:32:50.070 --> 00:32:52.050
they had to shunt their cuttings down
564
00:32:52.050 --> 00:32:54.600
into what was called a nepheloid layer,
565
00:32:54.600 --> 00:32:58.893
which was a basically an almost permanent turbid layer,
566
00:33:00.150 --> 00:33:05.023
hugging the bottom at the depths of over 200-300 feet.
567
00:33:05.023 --> 00:33:07.410
And Dave McGrail had determined that
568
00:33:07.410 --> 00:33:09.570
if it ever gets in that nepheloid layer,
569
00:33:09.570 --> 00:33:11.908
it's not gonna get back up on the bank
570
00:33:11.908 --> 00:33:14.348
and up on the reef building communities.
571
00:33:14.348 --> 00:33:16.040
Anyway, they were happy
572
00:33:16.040 --> 00:33:19.000
with those pieces of information
573
00:33:20.670 --> 00:33:23.608
and all these regulations still exist,
574
00:33:23.608 --> 00:33:28.083
they're still in the lease stipulations.
575
00:33:30.870 --> 00:33:35.870
But so most of the work that we did though,
576
00:33:36.690 --> 00:33:41.130
at the Flower Garden itself, was not done by submersible.
577
00:33:41.130 --> 00:33:42.810
Although we did use submersibles
578
00:33:42.810 --> 00:33:45.050
at the Flower Garden coral reefs,
579
00:33:45.050 --> 00:33:46.970
most of the work was done
580
00:33:46.970 --> 00:33:49.680
by graduate students in dive rigs.
581
00:33:49.680 --> 00:33:54.300
Greg Boland here being one of the key guys
582
00:33:54.300 --> 00:33:57.453
that did a tremendous amount of work for this project.
583
00:33:59.148 --> 00:34:01.500
Some of the things that we did by diver
584
00:34:01.500 --> 00:34:04.017
was establish photographic transects.
585
00:34:04.017 --> 00:34:07.770
And this was back in the mid-seventies,
586
00:34:07.770 --> 00:34:10.195
but we were able to make pretty accurate
587
00:34:10.195 --> 00:34:11.937
photographic transects.
588
00:34:11.937 --> 00:34:14.010
We didn't have digital cameras,
589
00:34:14.010 --> 00:34:17.400
we had to bring the film back into the lab
590
00:34:17.400 --> 00:34:22.400
and one of my students, Chris Combs, developed them all,
591
00:34:22.890 --> 00:34:26.940
and then another student, Steve Viada,
592
00:34:26.940 --> 00:34:28.650
stuck 'em all together
593
00:34:28.650 --> 00:34:33.650
and they were able to recognize the species of the corals,
594
00:34:34.170 --> 00:34:36.840
measure their living area
595
00:34:36.840 --> 00:34:40.230
as compared to the non-living area,
596
00:34:40.230 --> 00:34:44.340
and came up with a pretty darn good estimate
597
00:34:44.340 --> 00:34:49.340
of the population levels and percent cover of the corals
598
00:34:49.823 --> 00:34:52.448
throughout the reef back in those days.
599
00:34:52.448 --> 00:34:56.703
And we did a ton of these transects in the process.
600
00:34:58.050 --> 00:35:01.717
We cored some of the corals to look at accretionary growth.
601
00:35:01.717 --> 00:35:03.390
And you can see here,
602
00:35:03.390 --> 00:35:06.115
if you look at the centimeter scale down there
603
00:35:06.115 --> 00:35:09.593
and compare it to the year marks up on top of the cores,
604
00:35:13.080 --> 00:35:16.440
you can see about what they would,
605
00:35:16.440 --> 00:35:21.383
their growth rates accretionly, upward, on a yearly basis.
606
00:35:23.670 --> 00:35:27.300
We also established some repetitive stations
607
00:35:27.300 --> 00:35:30.480
that we could come back to year after year
608
00:35:30.480 --> 00:35:33.570
and look at encrusting growth.
609
00:35:33.570 --> 00:35:37.198
The last thing was, with the cores, was accretionary growth,
610
00:35:37.198 --> 00:35:40.500
encrusting growth was growing sideways
611
00:35:40.500 --> 00:35:43.082
and we thought this was a good indication
612
00:35:43.082 --> 00:35:46.740
of health of the coral heads and maybe of the reef.
613
00:35:46.740 --> 00:35:49.680
Also considered the competition
614
00:35:49.680 --> 00:35:51.893
between the different kinds of corals
615
00:35:51.893 --> 00:35:54.407
that were growing adjacent to one another.
616
00:35:54.407 --> 00:35:57.145
Corals compete with one another for space.
617
00:35:59.010 --> 00:36:04.010
This is our pipe monster, we had a time lapse camera in it.
618
00:36:05.610 --> 00:36:08.827
We could leave it overnight, we could leave it for hours,
619
00:36:08.827 --> 00:36:11.579
we could leave it between cruises.
620
00:36:11.579 --> 00:36:15.210
And we got some pretty cool little snips.
621
00:36:15.210 --> 00:36:18.870
We also were able to do fish counts and so on using it,
622
00:36:18.870 --> 00:36:22.290
but that was, you know, that's a little more complex.
623
00:36:22.290 --> 00:36:26.073
But here's one of our little clips.
624
00:36:27.484 --> 00:36:30.510
Montastraea cavernosa feeding at night.
625
00:36:30.510 --> 00:36:34.410
Note the polyp in the upper left with the long tentacles,
626
00:36:34.410 --> 00:36:37.470
he's sweeping around maybe being more efficient
627
00:36:37.470 --> 00:36:40.918
and they're gonna close up here due to some disturbance,
628
00:36:40.918 --> 00:36:42.916
but then come right back open.
629
00:36:44.580 --> 00:36:46.560
Diadema, the black urchin.
630
00:36:46.560 --> 00:36:51.273
Note that he's feeding on the algae and epifauna
631
00:36:53.150 --> 00:36:57.210
in the space between the two colonies of living coral.
632
00:36:57.210 --> 00:36:59.580
This, I think, cleans up that space
633
00:36:59.580 --> 00:37:03.480
to allow for settlement and growth of corals.
634
00:37:03.480 --> 00:37:05.670
There goes a slipper lobster.
635
00:37:11.400 --> 00:37:14.310
Yeah, High Island A389,
636
00:37:14.310 --> 00:37:16.050
it's a, Mobil put in a platform
637
00:37:16.050 --> 00:37:20.430
a couple of miles southeast of the East Flower Gardens.
638
00:37:20.430 --> 00:37:25.410
And they operated for quite a few years, it's gone now.
639
00:37:25.410 --> 00:37:27.843
I think they cut it off at some depth below,
640
00:37:28.770 --> 00:37:31.650
it's a diving attraction, I guess.
641
00:37:31.650 --> 00:37:33.930
Anyway, but while it was there,
642
00:37:33.930 --> 00:37:38.930
they, Mobil, allowed us to come aboard and do some work.
643
00:37:40.050 --> 00:37:42.210
They flew us out in helicopters,
644
00:37:42.210 --> 00:37:44.310
we went out on service vessels
645
00:37:44.310 --> 00:37:47.100
and you can see in the picture on the bottom,
646
00:37:47.100 --> 00:37:49.827
the basket that we stand up in,
647
00:37:49.827 --> 00:37:52.380
put the life jackets on, put all our gear in it,
648
00:37:52.380 --> 00:37:54.360
and then the guy with the crane
649
00:37:54.360 --> 00:37:56.970
would've hoisted us up onto the platform,
650
00:37:56.970 --> 00:37:58.602
it was pretty cool.
651
00:37:58.602 --> 00:38:01.110
They gave us a place to sleep and fed us,
652
00:38:01.110 --> 00:38:04.320
and we did a couple projects there.
653
00:38:04.320 --> 00:38:06.480
One of 'em was,
654
00:38:06.480 --> 00:38:08.550
we collected a bunch of coral eggs
655
00:38:08.550 --> 00:38:11.055
during one of the mass spawning events
656
00:38:11.055 --> 00:38:15.000
that Steve Gittings talked about a couple of weeks ago
657
00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:17.108
and brought it aboard the platform
658
00:38:17.108 --> 00:38:19.920
and we could look at the eggs under microscope
659
00:38:19.920 --> 00:38:22.736
and watch 'em develop and so on.
660
00:38:22.736 --> 00:38:26.850
And you can't do that on a rolling ship, it's impossible.
661
00:38:26.850 --> 00:38:30.840
So the stable platform was a great place to do that.
662
00:38:30.840 --> 00:38:32.730
I was able to take some of 'em home
663
00:38:32.730 --> 00:38:34.950
or some of them back to the lab
664
00:38:34.950 --> 00:38:38.846
and they settled out or a few of 'em settled out
665
00:38:38.846 --> 00:38:42.780
and formed little spat, coral spat,
666
00:38:42.780 --> 00:38:45.693
right in the sample bottle over a period of time.
667
00:38:49.200 --> 00:38:52.170
This is the list of the students that were involved,
668
00:38:52.170 --> 00:38:54.173
the graduate students involved
669
00:38:54.173 --> 00:38:56.745
in that Topographic Features Study,
670
00:38:56.745 --> 00:38:58.828
that's what the study was called,
671
00:38:58.828 --> 00:39:01.112
Topographic Features Study.
672
00:39:01.112 --> 00:39:06.112
And a lot of 'em are still around and still involved.
673
00:39:07.890 --> 00:39:11.290
All of 'em made theses or dissertations
674
00:39:12.211 --> 00:39:16.800
partially or totally based on observations
675
00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:19.588
they made during this Topo Features Study
676
00:39:20.550 --> 00:39:22.803
in pursuit of their advanced degrees.
677
00:39:24.330 --> 00:39:26.670
A really great group of people
678
00:39:26.670 --> 00:39:28.770
and without the graduate students,
679
00:39:28.770 --> 00:39:30.810
none of these studies could happen.
680
00:39:30.810 --> 00:39:32.343
They did the work.
681
00:39:35.250 --> 00:39:37.020
Here's a couple of 'em,
682
00:39:37.020 --> 00:39:40.113
fresh out of the water last century.
683
00:39:41.610 --> 00:39:43.890
Jim Kendall,
684
00:39:43.890 --> 00:39:48.753
I think now he's in his second go round as,
685
00:39:51.480 --> 00:39:53.390
what do they call him?
686
00:39:55.050 --> 00:39:59.450
Chief Manager of the Bureau of Offshore...
687
00:40:05.464 --> 00:40:08.610
I don't know what it means, it's B-O-E-M.
688
00:40:08.610 --> 00:40:11.230
It's what the BLM turned into
689
00:40:12.270 --> 00:40:16.290
after it turned into Minerals Management Service.
690
00:40:16.290 --> 00:40:19.710
Anyway, Jim's the boss in the Gulf of Mexico
691
00:40:19.710 --> 00:40:22.080
and this is his second go round.
692
00:40:22.080 --> 00:40:24.825
And in between, he was up in Alaska.
693
00:40:24.825 --> 00:40:27.300
The other guy without the shirt, of course,
694
00:40:27.300 --> 00:40:30.540
if you saw him a couple of weeks ago, Steve Gittings,
695
00:40:30.540 --> 00:40:33.780
he's the Science Coordinator nationwide
696
00:40:33.780 --> 00:40:38.780
for the entire National Marine Sanctuaries Program.
697
00:40:43.530 --> 00:40:46.763
Here's a few more. (Tom laughs)
698
00:40:48.120 --> 00:40:52.170
This is one of my favorite pictures, I had to show it.
699
00:40:52.170 --> 00:40:54.330
There are graduate students there
700
00:40:54.330 --> 00:40:58.143
and there's a professor there, taking a well deserved nap.
701
00:40:59.130 --> 00:41:01.413
The guy with the fist is Rusty Putt,
702
00:41:02.393 --> 00:41:05.253
the guy with the club is Ron Britton,
703
00:41:06.270 --> 00:41:08.733
and the guy with the camera is Rob Abbott.
704
00:41:11.430 --> 00:41:14.460
Nowadays, Rusty and Rob are both retired
705
00:41:14.460 --> 00:41:17.910
after long, successful careers
706
00:41:17.910 --> 00:41:22.650
as environmental advisors in the petroleum industry.
707
00:41:22.650 --> 00:41:24.860
And they're still around.
708
00:41:25.950 --> 00:41:30.423
Okay, I almost have time to finish up here.
709
00:41:32.340 --> 00:41:34.770
Probably the most memorable experience
710
00:41:34.770 --> 00:41:39.067
that I had during all of these studies was in 1976
711
00:41:40.110 --> 00:41:45.090
when I was piloting one of the geology graduate students
712
00:41:45.090 --> 00:41:48.570
across the reef, on a transect of the reef.
713
00:41:48.570 --> 00:41:50.355
And in the process,
714
00:41:50.355 --> 00:41:54.655
we drove up on this depression at the edge of the bank.
715
00:41:54.655 --> 00:41:56.417
And you can see it here,
716
00:41:56.417 --> 00:41:59.767
just to the left of our little inset
717
00:41:59.767 --> 00:42:01.593
that has the submarine in it.
718
00:42:02.460 --> 00:42:07.460
And the depression turned out to have a lake in it
719
00:42:09.060 --> 00:42:13.140
that was about,
720
00:42:13.140 --> 00:42:16.230
I would say a foot deep,
721
00:42:16.230 --> 00:42:19.833
maybe a little more in the middle, of brine,
722
00:42:21.417 --> 00:42:25.650
highly saline brine that has seeped out
723
00:42:25.650 --> 00:42:30.063
of the bank into this depression,
724
00:42:31.590 --> 00:42:35.103
run over into a canyon,
725
00:42:36.030 --> 00:42:39.930
downhill through the canyon
726
00:42:39.930 --> 00:42:44.610
as a mixing stream of brine and overlying seawater,
727
00:42:44.610 --> 00:42:47.103
and then out onto the surrounding sand bottom.
728
00:42:48.720 --> 00:42:53.720
And this was a pretty unique phenomenon for us at the time.
729
00:42:56.342 --> 00:42:59.880
In fact, it's about the same time they discovered
730
00:42:59.880 --> 00:43:02.693
some of the deeper brine seeps out
731
00:43:02.693 --> 00:43:06.333
in 1700 and 2000 feet of water.
732
00:43:07.410 --> 00:43:10.050
But this one's shallow, we could get to it,
733
00:43:10.050 --> 00:43:15.050
and we visited it over and over in the next several years.
734
00:43:18.027 --> 00:43:20.280
And this is sort of an overview
735
00:43:20.280 --> 00:43:22.920
of the plan view of the thing,
736
00:43:22.920 --> 00:43:25.170
we called it Gollum's Lake,
737
00:43:25.170 --> 00:43:29.040
Gollum after this creature in the movies.
738
00:43:29.040 --> 00:43:31.933
Anyway, and then Gollum's Canyon and so on.
739
00:43:31.933 --> 00:43:36.250
But then we had some place names that (indistinct),
740
00:43:38.100 --> 00:43:40.432
the overflow, right where it flowed out
741
00:43:40.432 --> 00:43:43.763
and down into the canyon, into the stream,
742
00:43:43.763 --> 00:43:46.980
and we had a corner pool where some of it collected.
743
00:43:46.980 --> 00:43:48.973
And then there's some markers
744
00:43:48.973 --> 00:43:51.337
like Chimney Rock, Boulder Two,
745
00:43:51.337 --> 00:43:55.488
and then there's a place where the reef constricts
746
00:43:55.488 --> 00:43:58.822
and the flow kind of gets funneled through there.
747
00:43:58.822 --> 00:44:01.020
And then there's another marker rock
748
00:44:01.020 --> 00:44:02.763
we call Cottonwick Rock.
749
00:44:02.763 --> 00:44:05.165
And then there's a couple of old anchors
750
00:44:05.165 --> 00:44:08.113
that have been there ever since we saw it first,
751
00:44:08.113 --> 00:44:09.963
ever since 1976.
752
00:44:12.808 --> 00:44:15.390
And here's a video of it.
753
00:44:15.390 --> 00:44:16.983
This is a brine lake.
754
00:44:18.600 --> 00:44:23.600
Brine, about five times saltier than normal seawater.
755
00:44:24.840 --> 00:44:28.140
An ROV taking pictures landing in the brine
756
00:44:28.140 --> 00:44:31.020
stirs it up into the normal seawater, it mixes,
757
00:44:31.020 --> 00:44:33.453
and it's all refracting.
758
00:44:35.190 --> 00:44:40.190
The shore line of the lake is occupied by sulfur bacteria.
759
00:44:41.700 --> 00:44:43.590
And you can see here where the ROV
760
00:44:43.590 --> 00:44:46.240
is creating an internal wave
761
00:44:47.400 --> 00:44:50.880
at the interface of the brine and the seawater.
762
00:44:50.880 --> 00:44:54.060
You can also see white flakes floating
763
00:44:54.060 --> 00:44:55.590
at the surface of the brine,
764
00:44:55.590 --> 00:44:57.840
those are sulfur flakes
765
00:44:57.840 --> 00:45:01.587
produced by the sulfur bacteria at the shoreline.
766
00:45:07.264 --> 00:45:10.347
(indistinct talking)
767
00:45:19.454 --> 00:45:22.537
(indistinct talking)
768
00:45:43.214 --> 00:45:46.214
What happens is the sea water percolates down
769
00:45:46.214 --> 00:45:48.506
through the coral reef (indistinct)
770
00:45:48.506 --> 00:45:52.684
to the salt underlying it about 35 meters down,
771
00:45:52.684 --> 00:45:56.543
(indistinct), then by gravity,
772
00:45:56.543 --> 00:45:59.900
flows down and out from the sea.
773
00:45:59.900 --> 00:46:02.043
You see the flakes falling down?
774
00:46:02.994 --> 00:46:05.730
Those are chunks of the bacterium.
775
00:46:05.730 --> 00:46:08.770
Bacteria are producing organic matter,
776
00:46:08.770 --> 00:46:11.160
which is flowing down the stream
777
00:46:11.160 --> 00:46:14.301
and reaching the biota of the rocky (indistinct),
778
00:46:14.301 --> 00:46:15.701
the sediments in the stream.
779
00:46:17.160 --> 00:46:20.044
About at this point, Chimney Rock,
780
00:46:20.044 --> 00:46:23.553
there's a very high population of gnathostomulids,
781
00:46:24.600 --> 00:46:27.153
small microscopic jaw worms.
782
00:46:28.050 --> 00:46:32.490
They're tolerant to high brine and hydrogen sulfide,
783
00:46:32.490 --> 00:46:36.090
but the other organisms that are typically in the sand,
784
00:46:36.090 --> 00:46:39.281
aren't and they're more or less blocked out.
785
00:46:45.383 --> 00:46:49.050
This is an example of the flow rate in 2013,
786
00:46:49.920 --> 00:46:54.213
about the same as it was in 1976.
787
00:46:57.152 --> 00:46:59.460
Now another group of organisms
788
00:46:59.460 --> 00:47:03.690
that are pretty prevalent in this is nematodes.
789
00:47:03.690 --> 00:47:08.690
In fact, over 20 nematodes species, new to science,
790
00:47:09.060 --> 00:47:13.023
were found in this brine seep during our studies.
791
00:47:14.700 --> 00:47:19.233
This is toward the bottom of the Gollum's Canyon stream,
792
00:47:20.308 --> 00:47:23.583
where it flows out onto the surrounding sand bottom.
793
00:47:27.628 --> 00:47:29.378
It was there in 1976.
794
00:47:32.401 --> 00:47:35.484
(indistinct talking)
795
00:47:42.956 --> 00:47:46.039
This anchor was there in '76 as well.
796
00:47:52.020 --> 00:47:55.170
Okay, here's some photographs that I put together
797
00:47:55.170 --> 00:47:57.180
to compare that '76 and '93
798
00:47:57.180 --> 00:48:00.000
and I think I'm gonna have to leave it there.
799
00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:02.515
I don't have time for the rest of it,
800
00:48:02.515 --> 00:48:06.420
but if you're interested in talking more
801
00:48:06.420 --> 00:48:08.943
about the brine seep, I'd be happy to.
802
00:48:10.782 --> 00:48:12.690
Well, thank you Tom.
803
00:48:12.690 --> 00:48:14.156
Absolutely fascinating.
804
00:48:14.156 --> 00:48:16.522
I love hearing the names of all these people
805
00:48:16.522 --> 00:48:18.635
that we now have banks named after,
806
00:48:18.635 --> 00:48:20.760
that are now part of the sanctuary.
807
00:48:20.760 --> 00:48:23.310
I hope the rest of you are catching onto that too.
808
00:48:23.310 --> 00:48:24.420
And right now,
809
00:48:24.420 --> 00:48:27.600
we have about 10 minutes to take questions from Tom.
810
00:48:27.600 --> 00:48:29.100
So if you do have questions,
811
00:48:29.100 --> 00:48:30.840
please type them into the question box
812
00:48:30.840 --> 00:48:34.830
in the Control Panel on the right-hand side of your screen
813
00:48:34.830 --> 00:48:38.340
and we will prioritize those and share those with Tom.
814
00:48:38.340 --> 00:48:40.050
Whatever we do not finish,
815
00:48:40.050 --> 00:48:43.290
we will try to do our best to answer after the fact.
816
00:48:43.290 --> 00:48:45.873
But no promises there. We'll do our best.
817
00:48:46.740 --> 00:48:50.940
So Tom, the first question is from your former student,
818
00:48:50.940 --> 00:48:52.447
Steve Gittings,
819
00:48:52.447 --> 00:48:54.930
"Your descriptions of the banks in the set 1970s
820
00:48:54.930 --> 00:48:57.810
still serve as the baseline for their characterization.
821
00:48:57.810 --> 00:49:00.379
Was your ability to describe the environment
822
00:49:00.379 --> 00:49:01.612
a natural talent
823
00:49:01.612 --> 00:49:04.452
or is it something you learned in some way?"
824
00:49:06.660 --> 00:49:10.380
A natural? Huh hmm. (Kelly laughs)
825
00:49:10.380 --> 00:49:14.640
You know, I liked to do drawing in high school,
826
00:49:17.640 --> 00:49:20.970
what they call it, mechanical drawing?
827
00:49:20.970 --> 00:49:24.810
And in fact, my brother got a job with Grumman
828
00:49:24.810 --> 00:49:27.958
as a mechanical artist,
829
00:49:27.958 --> 00:49:30.540
a mechanical drawing artist as we started,
830
00:49:30.540 --> 00:49:35.280
he ended up a really big wheel and now retired in Florida.
831
00:49:35.280 --> 00:49:37.667
But I think maybe it runs in the family.
832
00:49:37.667 --> 00:49:41.523
My mother did painting and my wife does painting,
833
00:49:42.500 --> 00:49:45.360
but some of this may be genetic. (Tom laughs)
834
00:49:45.360 --> 00:49:50.360
Anyway, I kind of think those diagrams that we drew
835
00:49:53.220 --> 00:49:55.170
kind of hark back to a penchant
836
00:49:55.170 --> 00:49:58.343
for mechanical drawing and such,
837
00:49:58.343 --> 00:50:01.230
but at the same time they were a good tool
838
00:50:01.230 --> 00:50:04.740
to use to convey the information
839
00:50:04.740 --> 00:50:08.730
to somebody that probably didn't get it,
840
00:50:08.730 --> 00:50:10.563
if it was all just words.
841
00:50:11.520 --> 00:50:16.173
I dunno, Steve, I also learned a lot along the way.
842
00:50:18.497 --> 00:50:20.193
It's a combination.
843
00:50:22.140 --> 00:50:23.440
Wonderful.
844
00:50:23.440 --> 00:50:25.354
So somebody else is wondering,
845
00:50:25.354 --> 00:50:28.052
"How long would some of those explorations take?"
846
00:50:28.052 --> 00:50:30.333
I'm assuming that like, when you're in the ROVs and such,
847
00:50:30.333 --> 00:50:32.959
about how long were you down for each trip?
848
00:50:32.959 --> 00:50:36.663
Yeah, they would take up to three or four hours,
849
00:50:37.964 --> 00:50:42.964
depending on what we wanted to do on a particular trip.
850
00:50:45.570 --> 00:50:50.460
I think Greg Boland when he took the Johnson Sea Link
851
00:50:50.460 --> 00:50:53.253
down into the brine seep, spent four hours on it.
852
00:50:54.660 --> 00:50:57.635
Well, we spent the same amount of time in the Diaphus sub
853
00:50:57.635 --> 00:51:01.050
and I would say typically anywhere from two to four hours
854
00:51:01.050 --> 00:51:04.203
would be a good dive duration.
855
00:51:07.483 --> 00:51:10.417
Wow, that's a long time to be in a tin can.
856
00:51:10.417 --> 00:51:12.450
(Kelly and Tom laugh)
857
00:51:12.450 --> 00:51:15.450
All right, "Who wrote and presented the proposal
858
00:51:15.450 --> 00:51:18.700
for a sanctuary here at the Flower Garden Banks?"
859
00:51:19.774 --> 00:51:20.607
Hmm.
860
00:51:22.530 --> 00:51:23.523
Who wrote it?
861
00:51:26.070 --> 00:51:27.600
I don't know.
862
00:51:27.600 --> 00:51:32.592
I think the original people who made the original proposal
863
00:51:32.592 --> 00:51:34.953
was a Houston Underwater Club.
864
00:51:36.960 --> 00:51:37.863
I think.
865
00:51:39.750 --> 00:51:44.750
Now, one thing about the whole situation was,
866
00:51:47.100 --> 00:51:50.850
I wasn't really tuned into all the politics
867
00:51:50.850 --> 00:51:53.550
and so on going on.
868
00:51:53.550 --> 00:51:56.916
We were just feeding information into the system.
869
00:51:58.320 --> 00:52:02.987
And there's a guy writing a book about this, Alan Wilde,
870
00:52:06.650 --> 00:52:08.978
and he covers all of this stuff.
871
00:52:08.978 --> 00:52:11.040
So when he publishes the book,
872
00:52:11.040 --> 00:52:13.680
you'll be able to read all about it.
873
00:52:13.680 --> 00:52:16.870
But I do think it was the Houston Underwater Club
874
00:52:17.730 --> 00:52:19.290
that got it all started.
875
00:52:19.290 --> 00:52:23.520
Of course, that was not successful and we had to go again.
876
00:52:23.520 --> 00:52:24.353
And then,
877
00:52:26.010 --> 00:52:31.010
the sanctuary program asked me to head an evaluation panel
878
00:52:32.490 --> 00:52:36.420
to identify and evaluate potential sites
879
00:52:36.420 --> 00:52:38.640
in the Gulf of Mexico.
880
00:52:38.640 --> 00:52:40.083
Jim Ray was on that.
881
00:52:41.040 --> 00:52:45.780
And what we produced was a list of locations
882
00:52:45.780 --> 00:52:49.110
and the Flower Gardens was at the top of it.
883
00:52:49.110 --> 00:52:50.970
But that wasn't really a proposal,
884
00:52:50.970 --> 00:52:55.443
it was just the work that we were charged to do.
885
00:52:56.790 --> 00:53:00.750
Now, I'd rather refer you to Alan Wilde
886
00:53:00.750 --> 00:53:02.730
as the expert to figure that out,
887
00:53:02.730 --> 00:53:05.520
who wrote the next proposal.
888
00:53:05.520 --> 00:53:06.990
We did contribute
889
00:53:06.990 --> 00:53:09.693
to the environmental impact statement considerably.
890
00:53:10.772 --> 00:53:12.230
That's all I have.
891
00:53:12.230 --> 00:53:13.840
I would think contribute
892
00:53:13.840 --> 00:53:15.242
is an understatement, Tom.
893
00:53:15.242 --> 00:53:17.670
But yes, Tom was critical in a lot of the information
894
00:53:17.670 --> 00:53:19.650
that went into the environmental impact statement.
895
00:53:19.650 --> 00:53:21.870
But yes, we are working with Alan Wilde
896
00:53:21.870 --> 00:53:23.640
on a history book about the sanctuary.
897
00:53:23.640 --> 00:53:26.190
So, hopefully you'll be hearing from us about that
898
00:53:26.190 --> 00:53:28.083
within the next year or so.
899
00:53:29.370 --> 00:53:30.203
All right,
900
00:53:30.203 --> 00:53:32.460
I think we've got time for at least one more question,
901
00:53:32.460 --> 00:53:33.330
maybe two.
902
00:53:33.330 --> 00:53:34.163
Next question:
903
00:53:34.163 --> 00:53:35.653
"Have you had a chance to come back
904
00:53:35.653 --> 00:53:37.110
to compare the conditions of the reef
905
00:53:37.110 --> 00:53:39.270
from the research done in the 1970s
906
00:53:39.270 --> 00:53:41.010
to the current conditions now?"
907
00:53:41.010 --> 00:53:43.710
You know who's doing that?
908
00:53:43.710 --> 00:53:46.473
It's the sanctuary staff.
909
00:53:50.100 --> 00:53:51.670
One of my dear friends
910
00:53:52.948 --> 00:53:56.431
and very productive member of that staff
911
00:53:58.463 --> 00:54:00.690
was Emma Hickerson.
912
00:54:00.690 --> 00:54:02.523
She recently retired.
913
00:54:04.800 --> 00:54:08.970
She has been replaced by an equally effective
914
00:54:08.970 --> 00:54:13.970
and efficient individual, Michelle Johnston.
915
00:54:17.760 --> 00:54:20.640
The sanctuary staff is doing all they can
916
00:54:20.640 --> 00:54:23.910
to keep track of the population levels out there.
917
00:54:23.910 --> 00:54:28.200
They produce periodic reports
918
00:54:28.200 --> 00:54:31.563
on the status of the sanctuary, which are quite excellent.
919
00:54:32.910 --> 00:54:35.430
And I'm not involved anymore.
920
00:54:35.430 --> 00:54:38.880
When I retired, Cindy and I got on our sailboat
921
00:54:38.880 --> 00:54:41.190
and sailed off to the Caribbean
922
00:54:41.190 --> 00:54:45.150
and got involved in reefs down in Belize and so on,
923
00:54:45.150 --> 00:54:48.720
it kinda took us on a different adventure.
924
00:54:48.720 --> 00:54:53.720
But the sanctuary staff took it from where we left off
925
00:54:54.930 --> 00:54:57.840
and they're carrying on as we speak.
926
00:54:57.840 --> 00:55:02.130
They probably have a cruise scheduled out pretty soon.
927
00:55:02.130 --> 00:55:04.456
So I think it's in good hands.
928
00:55:06.040 --> 00:55:07.973
Thank you, Tom.
929
00:55:07.973 --> 00:55:10.110
I think we have it in good hands as well.
930
00:55:10.110 --> 00:55:13.145
Folks, we do publish those reports to our website
931
00:55:13.145 --> 00:55:15.210
at flowergarden.noaa.gov.
932
00:55:15.210 --> 00:55:16.830
Look in the Science Reports section,
933
00:55:16.830 --> 00:55:18.270
you can see what we do annually
934
00:55:18.270 --> 00:55:20.070
for our long-term monitoring.
935
00:55:20.070 --> 00:55:22.200
Right now that's East and West Flower Garden Bank
936
00:55:22.200 --> 00:55:23.340
and Stetson Bank,
937
00:55:23.340 --> 00:55:25.050
but with the addition of all these new banks
938
00:55:25.050 --> 00:55:26.477
into the sanctuary,
939
00:55:26.477 --> 00:55:28.982
we'll probably start doing the same kinds of things
940
00:55:28.982 --> 00:55:32.130
at those areas sometime in the next few years.
941
00:55:32.130 --> 00:55:32.963
Well Tom,
942
00:55:32.963 --> 00:55:37.110
I think that's gonna wrap up what we have time for,
943
00:55:37.110 --> 00:55:37.943
for questions.
944
00:55:37.943 --> 00:55:39.810
Folks, if your question did not get answered,
945
00:55:39.810 --> 00:55:41.550
it looks like we only have a few more
946
00:55:41.550 --> 00:55:44.520
that we need to get to, so Tom, I may email those to you
947
00:55:44.520 --> 00:55:46.857
and see if we can get some more responses
948
00:55:46.857 --> 00:55:49.140
to send out to people after the fact.
949
00:55:49.140 --> 00:55:53.410
Right now, I am going to switch back over to my screen
950
00:55:56.040 --> 00:56:00.060
and we will wrap things up here.
951
00:56:00.060 --> 00:56:02.670
My screen showing yet?
952
00:56:02.670 --> 00:56:04.660
What's going on here?
953
00:56:08.280 --> 00:56:09.608
Let's see.
954
00:56:09.608 --> 00:56:11.773
Yes, you all are seeing my screen. Okay.
955
00:56:11.773 --> 00:56:13.650
So everyone, thank you for attending
956
00:56:13.650 --> 00:56:15.270
this Seaside Chats presentation
957
00:56:15.270 --> 00:56:17.340
on Exploring A Future Sanctuary.
958
00:56:17.340 --> 00:56:20.255
This is the third in a series of our four presentations
959
00:56:20.255 --> 00:56:21.947
that we offered this month.
960
00:56:21.947 --> 00:56:23.690
So please be sure to sign up
961
00:56:23.690 --> 00:56:25.893
for the one more remaining presentation
962
00:56:25.893 --> 00:56:28.260
next Wednesday, February 22nd.
963
00:56:28.260 --> 00:56:31.470
We'll be hearing about the use of environmental DNA
964
00:56:31.470 --> 00:56:33.870
to help us learn more about organisms in the deeper,
965
00:56:33.870 --> 00:56:35.910
less explored part of our sanctuary,
966
00:56:35.910 --> 00:56:38.077
parts that usually require submersibles,
967
00:56:38.077 --> 00:56:39.938
the mesophotic zone.
968
00:56:39.938 --> 00:56:41.280
So please join us
969
00:56:41.280 --> 00:56:44.972
and Luke McCarton will be speaking about that next week.
970
00:56:47.332 --> 00:56:48.258
And as I said,
971
00:56:48.258 --> 00:56:50.310
depending on the number of questions remaining,
972
00:56:50.310 --> 00:56:52.590
we will attempt to get those answered for you
973
00:56:52.590 --> 00:56:55.740
after the webinar ends and then email out the responses.
974
00:56:55.740 --> 00:56:57.600
If you would like to learn more on your own,
975
00:56:57.600 --> 00:57:00.210
we have provided a document full of resource links
976
00:57:00.210 --> 00:57:02.460
in the Handouts pane of the Control Panel.
977
00:57:02.460 --> 00:57:05.160
And now would be an excellent time to download that,
978
00:57:05.160 --> 00:57:07.050
if you haven't done so yet.
979
00:57:07.050 --> 00:57:10.020
And as always, we welcome your feedback and questions.
980
00:57:10.020 --> 00:57:12.810
You can submit input by replying to the follow up email
981
00:57:12.810 --> 00:57:14.640
you'll receive after the webinar,
982
00:57:14.640 --> 00:57:18.723
or by emailing us at flowergarden@noaa.gov.
983
00:57:21.290 --> 00:57:23.670
Today's presentation has also been part
984
00:57:23.670 --> 00:57:26.070
of the National Marine Sanctuary Webinar Series
985
00:57:26.070 --> 00:57:28.830
and while Seaside Chats last just one month,
986
00:57:28.830 --> 00:57:31.374
our National Webinar Series continues throughout the year
987
00:57:31.374 --> 00:57:34.890
to provide you with educational and scientific expertise,
988
00:57:34.890 --> 00:57:36.254
resources, and training
989
00:57:36.254 --> 00:57:39.300
to support ocean and climate literacy.
990
00:57:39.300 --> 00:57:42.014
Be sure to check the website for recordings of past webinars
991
00:57:42.014 --> 00:57:44.370
and a schedule of what's to come.
992
00:57:44.370 --> 00:57:46.470
And if you don't get it off the screen here,
993
00:57:46.470 --> 00:57:48.180
that is also in the handout.
994
00:57:48.180 --> 00:57:49.163
As a reminder,
995
00:57:49.163 --> 00:57:51.385
we will share the recording of this webinar
996
00:57:51.385 --> 00:57:54.780
via the National Marine Sanctuaries Webinar Series website
997
00:57:54.780 --> 00:57:56.610
and the Flower Garden Banks
998
00:57:56.610 --> 00:57:58.948
National Marine Sanctuary website.
999
00:58:00.163 --> 00:58:01.820
Following this webinar,
1000
00:58:01.820 --> 00:58:03.788
attendees will receive a PDF copy
1001
00:58:03.788 --> 00:58:05.730
of a certificate of attendance
1002
00:58:05.730 --> 00:58:07.830
that provides documentation for one hour
1003
00:58:07.830 --> 00:58:10.770
of professional development for today's presentation.
1004
00:58:10.770 --> 00:58:13.380
This includes our Texas CPE provider number
1005
00:58:13.380 --> 00:58:15.840
for those of you who are Texas educators.
1006
00:58:15.840 --> 00:58:17.868
If you are an educator outside of Texas,
1007
00:58:17.868 --> 00:58:19.860
please use this certificate to help
1008
00:58:19.860 --> 00:58:22.230
get your hours approved in your district.
1009
00:58:22.230 --> 00:58:24.458
And if you require any additional information,
1010
00:58:24.458 --> 00:58:28.635
please contact me at flowergarden@noaa.gov.
1011
00:58:28.635 --> 00:58:30.930
There will also be a short evaluation
1012
00:58:30.930 --> 00:58:32.790
following today's presentation.
1013
00:58:32.790 --> 00:58:34.020
Please complete this survey
1014
00:58:34.020 --> 00:58:36.351
immediately after signing off the webinar.
1015
00:58:36.351 --> 00:58:39.093
It should only take about three minutes to complete
1016
00:58:39.093 --> 00:58:41.340
and we greatly appreciate any feedback
1017
00:58:41.340 --> 00:58:43.348
you are willing to share.
1018
00:58:44.601 --> 00:58:48.510
Thanks again to Tom Bright for a great presentation
1019
00:58:48.510 --> 00:58:51.960
about Exploring a Future Sanctuary.
1020
00:58:51.960 --> 00:58:55.530
And it was definitely a pleasure to have you this evening.
1021
00:58:55.530 --> 00:58:58.980
Tom, we had so many people online who you talked about,
1022
00:58:58.980 --> 00:59:00.720
we learned about the banks
1023
00:59:00.720 --> 00:59:02.855
that are named after these people,
1024
00:59:02.855 --> 00:59:05.530
it was just a wonderful time having you here.
1025
00:59:06.600 --> 00:59:09.360
Well, I appreciate it.
1026
00:59:09.360 --> 00:59:14.360
Make sure you check out the nematodes in the brine seep,
1027
00:59:18.480 --> 00:59:21.189
we all had worms named after us.
1028
00:59:21.189 --> 00:59:22.414
Oh really?
1029
00:59:22.414 --> 00:59:24.450
Okay, that's new information.
1030
00:59:24.450 --> 00:59:27.900
Yeah, (laughs) I'll send you a list.
1031
00:59:27.900 --> 00:59:30.683
Okay, and I can include that in-
1032
00:59:32.176 --> 00:59:35.160
Yeah, you need a worm named after you,
1033
00:59:35.160 --> 00:59:39.261
if wanna be a true biologist.
1034
00:59:39.261 --> 00:59:41.760
Okay. (laughs)
1035
00:59:41.760 --> 00:59:43.500
And thanks to all of you out there
1036
00:59:43.500 --> 00:59:45.930
for taking the time to join us this evening.
1037
00:59:45.930 --> 00:59:47.973
This concludes today's webinar.