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Seafloor in Stereo

NOAA’s HabCamV4 imaging system was developed by WHOI scientists and engineers and captures six stereo image pairs per second resulting in one million images per day as it is towed 3 meters (9 feet) above the seafloor. This image was taken on May 23 during the annual scallop survey in Northeast U.S. coastal waters about 80 miles off the coast of Delaware at a depth of 62 meters (200 feet) and shows more than 120 two-year-old scallops in a square-meter. This density was evident for several kilometers. Many of the scallops are actually swimming above the seafloor, which becomes apparent when viewed with its stereo “twin.”(Photo by Scott Gallager, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)