NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer: Mountains in the Deep: Exploring the Central Pacific Basin

From April 27 – May 19, 2017, NOAA and partners will collect critical baseline information about poorly understood deepwater areas in the Pacific. The team will conduct near daily remotely operated vehicle (ROV) dives in American Samoa; the high seas; and the Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef, and Palmyra Atoll Units of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument before returning to Honolulu.

NOTE: All things permitting, ROV dives are planned most days from April 27 – May 15, 2017, typically from about 8 am to 5 pm SST (3 pm to 12 am EDT).[/quote\

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/media/exstream/exstream_03.html

There are three cameras you can switch between, and there is usually commentary, sometimes giving very detailed information about the creatures. The resolution is great.

Jolly good.

That knitting needle critter there looks as cuddly as all get-out.

Pelagothuria

Looks like a jellyfish but it is actually sea cucumber

Zoantharia colony on the back of a hermit crab

Some kind of urchin

Are those pebbles manganese nodules?

Zoroaster seastar

Bubblecar said:

Are those pebbles manganese nodules?

They are!

dv said:

Bubblecar said:

Are those pebbles manganese nodules?

They are!

I done good.

Nodule growth is one of the slowest of all known geological phenomena, on the order of a centimeter over several million years. Several processes are hypothesized to be involved in the formation of nodules, including the precipitation of metals from seawater (hydrogenous), the remobilization of manganese in the water column (diagenetic), the derivation of metals from hot springs associated with volcanic activity (hydrothermal), the decomposition of basaltic debris by seawater (halmyrolitic) and the precipitation of metal hydroxides through the activity of microorganisms (biogenic). Several of these processes may operate concurrently or they may follow one another during the formation of a nodule.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manganese_nodule

Obv, you get a much better idea of the shapes from watching the videos than from seeing these snaps.

Halosaur: long thin deep sea fish with a whiplike tail and big scales.

Bubblecar said:

Are those pebbles manganese nodules?

Looks like them.

Duck-billed eel (Nettastoma parviceps)

That red dot is part of the vehicle’s range finder system. There are two of those beams 10 cm apart.

Great thread dv.

What can I say? It has all been said before me.

mollwollfumble said:

Great thread dv.

cheers