Extreme Corals

The Extreme Corals cruises explored and characterized deep coral ecosystems from the West Florida Shelf to the northern Florida east coast. The 14-day cruise, May 7-20, 2015 was conducted using University of Miami’s R/V Walton Smith with the Mohawk ROV to map and survey selected areas of interest to NOAA, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), and the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council on the southwest Florida shelf, and in particular, areas of northern Pulley Ridge outside of the Pulley Ridge Habitat Area of Particular Concern (HAPC), and the outer shelf at depths of 70 m to 300 m (maximum depth of ROV).