The Staff of the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary (CBNMS) completed a highly successful research mission using a remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) August 18-25, 2014. The team visited the main feature of the sanctuary, Cordell Bank, to conduct a characterization of the invertebrate community on the shallowest parts of the bank using the sanctuary-owned Phantom ROV and R/V Fulmar. In seven days of field operations, the team completed 17 transects, collected over 2000 still images, and nearly 20 hours of video. The data collected will be analyzed this fall by CBNMS and used to characterize the sanctuary and provide information for monitoring. The operation benefited from a little luck with the late summer weather and from the expertise of the R/V Fulmar crew members. CBNMS plans to continue ROV operations on Cordell Bank in 2015 but next up is a survey of the proposed expansion areas of Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuaries September 2-7, 2014. In partnership with National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, CBNMS and GFNMS will explore areas near Bodega Canyon and at a feature called “the football” September 2-7.
