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UP AND AT ‘EM!

Members of the CATALYST ONE expedition team prepare for a sunrise launch in December 2008 of one of two 6,000-meter autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), owned by the Waitt Institute for Discovery. The AUVs were developed at WHOI and were used by scientists at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute to create the first-ever high definition side-scan sonar maps of deep-water Lophelia and Oculina coral reefs off the coast of eastern Florida. The expedition was the first in a new partnership between WHOI and the Waitt Institute for Discovery to make available to a wide range of science users a versatile and highly portable deep-sea tool kit and operations team that is rapidly deployable all over the world.
(Photo by Mike Purcell, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)