PRE- AND POST-DRILLING BENCHMARKS AND MONITORING DATA 

 ON OCEAN FLOOR FAUNA, HABITATS, AND CONTAMINANT LOADS 

 IN THE GEORGES BANK SUBMARINE CANYONS 



Dr. Richard A. Cooper 



Professor of Marine Sciences 



Director, National Undersea Research Center 



University of Connecticut at Avery Point 



Groton, CT 



The biology and geology of 18 submarine canyons of the northwest Atlantic 

 was investigated by diver scientists, using manned submersibles, from 1973 

 through 1984. This effort entailed in-situ studies in 18 canyons ranging from 

 Corsair, Georges, Nygren, Powell, Lydonia, Gilbert, Oceanographer, Filebottom, 

 Hydrographer, and Veatch off Georges Bank to Atlantis, Block, Hudson, Toms, 

 Wilmington, Baltimore, Washington, and Norfolk off southern New England and 

 the Mid-Atlantic Bight. We concentrated on the canyons of Georges Bank and 

 those immediately to the southwest. The principal motivation was fisheries 

 assessment and habitat definition, including associated megabenthos. We were 

 concerned particularly with the canyon heads. 



From 1980 through 1984 scientists from several New England research 

 institutions — National Marine Fisheries, U.S. Geological Survey, and National 

 Undersea Research Center--conducted a before-, during-, and post-drilling 

 study of the species abundance, community structure, animal -substrate 

 relationships, and body-substrate burdens of trace metals, polychlorinated 

 biphenyls (PCBs), and hydrocarbons within and downstream of oil and gas 

 exploration areas on the south central portion of Georges Bank including 

 Lydonia, Oceanographer, and Veatch Canyons. 



Ocean floor stations at specific sites (marked with a 37-kHz pinger) were 

 established in Lydonia Canyon (head of canyon and west wall) in 1980 and in 

 Oceanographer Canyon (head and west wall) and Veatch Canyon (west wall) in 

 1981 and 1982. Photo and video transects were made in July, along transects 



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