1 MS. HUGHES: Operational discharges is just drill muds and 



2 cuttings? 



3 DR. AURAND: Yes. 



4 MS. HUGHES: We're not off the exploratory phase, is that right? 



5 DR. GRASSLE: The only difficult issue and I don't know if this 



6 might be important, but you could think of a situation where you have 



7 enough material on the bottom to inhibit larval settlement for chemical 



8 reasons rather than the sort of physical ones we are talking about. It 



9 is an unknown. 



10 DR. COOPER: With virtually all of these canyons, at least from 



11 what I have been listening to in the last day and a half, there are at 



12 least sufficient high energy periodic events that are sweeping and 



13 flushing these canyons. The dilution factor is so great, I really don't 



14 see a net build-up with the possible exception that in some of the axis, 



15 there is an area between 300 and 500 meters in the head of Lydonia 



16 Canyon that appears to be a net depositional area. 



17 DR. BUTMAN: I think we may have made this resuspension issue a 



18 little bit too strong. That is certainly the case on the axis, but as I 



19 said this morning and tried to say several times, the walls may be much 



20 more tranquil than that. They may not be swept clean often; at least, 



21 we don't have any data to suggest whether there is heavy resuspension on 



22 the walls or not. 



23 DR. COOPER: Let me say this: The areas where you have your high 



24 abundances of commercial species on the walls of the canyons are high 



25 energy areas; they are not net depositional areas. I cannot see--I 



26 cannot imagine conditions where there would be a net deposition of 



27 anything on them. 



28 Your boulder fields where most of your commercial species are 



29 located are areas where there is--as the fines are stirred up through 



30 biological activity, they are swept away. 



31 This may seem like a daring statement on my part, but from 



32 everything I've heard so far, I don't think you would ever be able to 



33 measure the impacts on any of those fauna out there unless there was 



34 just a massive accident, a massive oil spill, or something. 



310 



