FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 87, NO. 4. 1989 



METHODS 



During the summers of 1983 through 1985, 

 the JOHNSON-SEA-LINK manned submers- 

 ible systems were used to survey the mega- 

 fauna at 29 stations in the Gulf of Maine (Fig. 1; 

 App. Table 1). In 1983, locations in the outer 

 Gulf, Georges Basin and the area northward 

 toward Truxton Swell, were sampled; in 1984, 

 the stations in the middle of the Gulf and Jordan 

 Basin were visited. In 1985, a series of stations 

 running from the center of Jordan Basin to the 

 northeast towards the Bay of Fundy were to be 

 sampled. Unfortunately, weather limited avail- 

 able diving time in 1985 and forced diving oper- 

 ations inshore toward the Nova Scotian coast 

 after only three stations were sampled. The 

 purpose of the study was to document offshore 



lobster habitat; therefore, dive site selection 

 was based on commercial trap fishery informa- 

 tion as well as on National Marine Fisheries 

 Service data from their biannual groundfish 

 trawl surveys of lobster catches. 



Submersible dives at each station followed a 

 standard protocol, with the diver-scientist re- 

 cording observations on a cassette tape or video 

 camera as well as collecting surficial sediment 

 samples over the course of a transect. In addi- 

 tion to these data, 35 mm color photographs 

 were taken automatically at 10 to 15 s intervals 

 throughout the dive. 



In the laboratory, a minimum of 200 ran- 

 domly chose photogi'aphs from each dive, or all 

 photos taken during the entire dive if <200 

 frames total, were individually examined and 

 the megafauna identified and enumerated. The 



70°00' 



68" 00' 



66°00' 



44° 

 00' 



43° 

 GO' 



42' 



00" 



• Gravels 

 X Sands 

 O Silts 

 O Clay 



;" Ir. - > Basin /-; / ...i 





ov, 



\^' 



:v>-^' 









1?. "o^ 



I \ 





• 1 / 



o Xx 



Georges Basin 



_L 



X 



J. 



44° 

 00' 



43° 

 00' 



42° 

 00" 



70"00' 68° 00' 66°00' 



Macrobenthic Sampling Sites 1983-1985 

 JOHNSON SEA-LINK Submersibles 



Figure 1. — Dive site locations for 29 dives constituting the megafaunal survey, 1983-85, using the JOHNSON-SEA-LINK 



submersible systems. 



946 



